Lenin's Harem Read online

  I sat while others prepared for battle, aided the wounded, fought for one more breath. Of what value was I? To others? To myself?

  I thought of those soldiers lying in the boat earlier today. Could I have held my breath, carried at least one up the embankment? With Gaters help, possibly. But we had only fled. Both of us.

  I rejected these thoughts, searched for optimism. Perhaps, the mass retching had subsided slightly? A comforting idea until I realized the reduction only could mean more men had perished. So tragic. There were rules even in war. Things so terrible, so against natural law, that they should never even be conceived, much less implemented. Had the scientists, the politicians, the kaiser seen what their weapons do? Could they possibly walk down this trench and say to themselves: ‘This is good.’?

  Tentelis stood across the dugout, still talking in the dusk with the same Russian sentry. They seemed to be getting along swimmingly. I admitted myself a tad jealous. A Russian and a Latvian; A soldier and an officer chatting for so long, did the major forget all his claims of Russian betrayal?

  War seemed a strange place to forgive hatreds. They were birthed here, not buried. Why was this soldier pardoned, but not my people? Why not the landowners, Major?

  Perhaps I was concentrating too much on these musings, or maybe I had grown too accustomed to battle, but I did not hear the whistle of the shell. It exploded close behind, sending brick, mud and shrapnel ricocheting against the outer walls. Another and another, lighting up the dusk, following in rhythm down the lines. Somewhere a man screamed. And then I saw them. The dirty green gases rising from blackened craters, blowing through the trench like sea fog beneath a pier.

  When would they stop? With trembling hands I donned my gear. My breathing so fast, the mask pulled concave across dry lips.

  I turned to the major for guidance. To my surprise, he had removed his own mask, placing it on the face of this soldier. In the horror of the moment, I could barely think. Why? Why? An officer, a battalion commander, giving protection to a common foot soldier. A Latvian helping a Russian. Those he said plotted against him.

  Major Tentelis gave a quick pat to his shoulder. ‘Your post.’ The man stood shocked for a moment, and then climbed up toward a machine gun nest. Ignoring me, Tentelis ran off in the opposite direction. Seconds later, the cloud rolled in, quickly fading light and color to memory.

  I ran in the major’s direction, imagining his thoughts. I won’t take shelter, while the soldiers suffer. Perhaps, perhaps. Or maybe something more basic, more human. A simple sacrifice, made to secure a fellow man’s life. A soldier, who’d survived three attacks should not have to endure a fourth unaided. I could hear him saying those words.

  But now Tentelis was exposed himself. Who would aid him?

  Shame covered me as thoroughly as the gas. We were about to die. It felt nearly a certainty, and there was something in the nature of the major’s sacrifice, which made me want to pass on the same. To give Tentelis my mask, to let him know I understood.

  Later, I would spend many hours pondering these brittle seconds. Blessed by a richer life, why was I suddenly willing to gamble my future for an ugly, common Latvian? One of those who had already taken so much from me. An unbalanced equation certainly. What had overcome me?

  But at that moment, it was all I wanted. To force my mask on him, to give my pampered, meaningless life for someone who would sacrifice his own for another. To prove I would do so.

  I chased the major, as the green mist penetrated everything: the other men, the weapons, the trench walls themselves. I could feel it soak through my clothes, sneaking underneath my sleeves, crawling down my neck. A drying wetness, it dampened the surface while sucking moisture from deeper within my skin. I felt dehydrated, as if my flesh was growing dusty, flaking away.

  The mask too was smothering. My limbs grew weak, my lungs straining to pull thick oxygen through dense cotton. It came too slowly. I could only stumble forward in the glued mire, each step shorter, weaker than the last.

  The major fell ahead of me, pulling in his knees, wrapping his coat over his head. I kneeled at him trying to pry his hand free, to make him grip my mask. I paused a moment before removing the precious device, cloistering my clothes about me as tightly as possible. I took one last gasp and pulled it off. I grabbed the major’s wrist, pressing the cloth into his palm.

  Take the mask. Take it.

  He pushed me away harshly, rocking me back on my heels. I propped my free hand into the mud to prevent rolling onto my ass. The mask fell free between us.

  I scooped it up. He must understand. I can aid him, as he had the soldier. In all this death, he needed to let me help him.

  He wasn’t looking at me, head down inside his coat. Did he know what I was offering in this lethal gangrene gas? Could he sense who I was? I reached out for his shoulder. Here! This is life!

  My heart a machine-gun, my own body crying out for breath, terrified, drowning, I lost control of my bladder, the warmth of urine running down my pant leg.

  I remembered the soldier’s words. Perhaps, we both could live! Hold on a moment more, Major.

  I began tearing at my shirt, my jacket. The material was thick and hard to split, the effort eating up the oxygen in my lungs. Just a small part, please. Any piece that would come loose.

  Something within him decided to move. His face eclipsed, he struggled to his feet, his back to me. I could hear his choking already. No, this way! No. No. No. I held out the mask. Take it!

  The major gained his balance, and still hunched over, ran down the chaotic trench. Disappearing quickly into the astral fog.

  It was my last sight of him alive.

  By the time I rose, my head was dizzy, my steps unbalanced. Desperate for air, I pressed the filter to my lips. The gasping breath brought a measure of slithering toxicity with it. It seared my mouth’s interior, a burning coal slipping toward my throat. I gagged, biting into fabric as I donned the mask fully. My senses were spinning, drunk. Which way had he fled?

  Somewhere guns were firing. I sought higher ground, seeking a moment’s rest to regain my wits. Dropping to my knees in a puddle, I leaned back against a wall of sandbags. I considered ripping off the cloth, better poison than asphyxiation. But those eternal coughs hounded me, dissuaded, reminding me of the queue between Hell and Purgatory.

  I was lost in a blank green world. The major was gone, disappearing with all the land’s features, bettering me in his death.

  Damn him.

  I sat trapped on an island, a grim shroud descending from the green skies. Useless, I curled up in the lonely mud, pulled my coat over my head, and for the second time that day begged for God’s forgiveness.

  Chapter Eleven

  Great beasts gathered around the watering hole.

  Or so it seemed to me as the morning window light reflected off the cold polished meeting table, gently mixing white, blue and brown over its surface like the pooling colors of some secluded, sylvan pond. Lounging along its edge was the Russian 12th Army staff: old men hidden behind wiry white whiskers, their full bellies jingling the bottom of dull medals when they coughed, shifted in their chairs or belched some half-hearted complaint. Sleepy, aging lions more tired than threatening.

  Of course it was easy to be brave when you weren’t standing in front of them as bespectacled Captain Juskevics now was. Promoted to replace Major Tentelis, his bouncy energies were the springs of an annoying gazelle in this pride’s lethargic midst. Occasionally, they’d take a lazy swat at him, but no one really had the energy to finish the Lett. He bounded about, safe while the old beasts slept, satiated from their extensive breakfast.

  Nothing he said was reaching them. His terms were dryly technical. His ideas, so bold to the men, were ridiculous to this audience. They asked few questions, gave fewer suggestions. These men had made their careers with the old strategies, crafted methods that had allowed them to surpass their fellows, to rise to the status where Grand Duke Nicholas, indeed the tsar himself, entrusted them with the Empire’s very survival. No denizen of a tiny province was going to tell them how to win the war. Not one barely out of his teens, certainly.

  Juskevics’s nasal voice seemed shriller in the echoing, musty chamber. ‘Despite a four to one enemy superiority, Lieutenant Briedis was able to….’

  ‘It’s Colonel Briedis, Captain,’ sparked the plump Bulgarian General Dimitrev, awakening from his sleep to swipe at the gazelle. ‘Don’t you know your own leaders?’

  A purple-faced officer laughed at this remark. Or was it a snore? Either way, his eyes remained shut.

  Juskevics adjusted his glasses, pressing them higher along the bridge of his nose. ‘Yes, but it was ‘Lieutenant’ then, wasn’t it? Or was he a captain at Misa? Can someone check that?’

  Desperate to move him on, I nodded as if taking the note, only scribbling the word ‘idiot’ on my paper. Stay on the subject Heinrichs, and for God’s sake don’t correct them. What is the benefit of embarrassing a general, please?

  He continued. ‘Nevertheless, this decentralization will often bring the men out of the range of a company commander’s voice. What to do? What to do?’

  Even I couldn’t listen anymore. I found myself seeking the shelter of the window’s view. Outside, past the empty November trees, I could see the grey flowing Daugava, across the Saulkalne bridgehead half-hidden in mist. Last night’s rains had washed away all the smoke from the daily battle. They called it ‘Naves sala’ now, the ‘Isle of Death.’ An appropriate christening. A month ago I had nearly died there. Three thousand had been less lucky.

  October had passed. A month where I’d tried to change everything, tried to matter.

  I had initiated this meeting, planned it, written up the schedules, and pried compliance from the
Latvian company commanders, citing benefit after benefit. Essentially extorted the Russians officers, implying to each, that everyone else who mattered would be present. I understand the importance of recuperation General. Not to worry, I am sure your fellows will be fair when they dole out the roles in the coming offensive, sir.

  I certainly hadn’t conceived the brewing Winter Offensive, but I could do my best to glue Russians and Latvians together before it began. The 12th Army, and for the first time, all nine Latvian Battalions striking at once.

  The goal? One dear to my heart: The liberation of Courland itself.

  To throw the Germans out of Latvia.

  I took one last glance across the river. With morning rays breaking through the storm clouds, Naves sala looked rather peaceful, slandered by its young name. Hard to believe two battalions lay waiting in the cold mud for the next German attack.

  The seasons move on, no matter what men do, a poet once said.

  A heavy sigh. Perhaps this meeting should move on as well. No one was even watching Juskevics anymore. Despite his grand gestures and oft-quoted statistics, the decision was made long before this conference started two hours ago.

  Only our surprise guest seemed even to be conscious, and he was certainly more focused on the mannerisms and reactions about the table, than anything said across it. I’d invited Vereshchagin as a matter of courtesy. He’d said ‘No.’

  So why was he here anyway?

  One of the staff assistants entered through the rear door, uncomfortably willing his footsteps to mute. He crept along the circumference of the table, each general, every colonel looking up, hopeful of being pulled from the dreary meeting. At last he bowed, whispering something to Vereshchagin, before passing him a folded note.

  Vereshchagin took a quick scan of the message, politely excused himself, and walked toward the door. As he did so, he brushed along my shoulder, the words ‘Please join me,’ whispered into my ear.

  I was uncomfortable leaving a meeting I had arranged, especially one that was failing so spectacularly, abandoning Juskevics on the sinking ship. Still, Captain Vereshchagin was not to be ignored.

  Juskevics, his cadence now pleading, asked for questions. There were none.

  I stood up, watching our young commander’s eyes turn my way. I put up one finger. ‘One moment’ I mouthed, using the cover of silence to slip away.

  *****

  Outside, Captain Vereshchagin was watching a Latvian regiment practice marksmanship, his face and stance, registering his disgust.

  ‘These Livs know nothing about war, Rooks. Look at them, firing on their own. Where is the discipline?’

  ‘With present reload rates, it makes more sense to have them fire at will rather than sit inactive.’

  He lit a cigarette. ‘You sound like that wet-nursed captain in there. Who does he think he is? Telling the generals what strategy to use.’

  Was that rhetorical? When I didn’t answer, he did: ‘Rooks…this desire for the Latvians to break down their forces, to give their men responsibility.’ He paused, waving his cigaretted hand in tumbling passes as if trying to find the words. ‘Is it an attempt to shift the blame, to scapegoat the soldiers for their officers’ on the field failures? … Tobacco?’

  His words out, the hand gestures stopped, a thumb hooking onto his broad brown belt. His index finger tapped the buckle, as if timing the seconds to my response.

  ‘No thank you sir. We are only doing what we think is tactfully advantageous, sir.’

  ‘We?’ The tapping stopped cold.

  ‘Well you assigned me to this battalion, Captain. So, yes, ‘We’’

  I did not like his facial reaction to this. I continued: ‘They, Captain, are merely doing what the Germans have been doing. The kaiser’s troops have delegated authority, broken into smaller tactical units and backed us up from Prussia all the way to the banks of the Dauga…’

  ‘Lieutenant, I’m hearing the same thing in every Latvian battalion. Untrained troops making battlefield decisions…’

  I pooled my courage. ‘No, sir. They’re training them sir. That’s the point, to deepen the knowledge down the ranks.’

  He nodded, as if finally comprehending. ‘A Lett’s a Lett, a Cour’s a Cour, regardless of rank?’

  ‘That’s not what we’re saying at all…’

  He seemed irritated at the correction. ‘Are you their propaganda officer, or my liaison man, Rooks?’

  Suddenly the deadened conference seemed less uncomfortable. ‘I am your liaison, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ He took a few more puffs on his cigarette, watching the men run about the field.

  Finally, he turned back to me. ‘Do you think this some type of Marxist subversion, Rooks? A give the power to the common man, common soldier philosophy?’

  I found myself disagreeing with him again. ‘No, I don’t think so, Captain.’

  His hand flew up in disgust. ‘Stop arguing with me Lieutenant! In every Latvian battalion I go, I see it. Every report I receive says these units are infected with communism and nationalism. Like gangrene, we must cut it off.’

  An exaggeration, surely. ‘I wouldn’t say so, sir.’

  His eyes rolled. ‘Except yours, Rooks. Except yours. Not a word.’ He angrily poked my breast, the ash from his cigarette tumbling down the front of my uniform. ‘Are you trying to tell me that in all these battalions, by chance, yours is the one without the slightest sign of Marxism? Or that not a single one of your men hopes he is fighting for a Latvian nation?’

  ‘Sir, there are sympathies here and there, but nobody’s planning to overthrow the government.’

  ‘I want these sympathies in your report, Rooks!’ He poked me harder, pressing fabric into muscle. ‘That’s an order, not a request!’

  He stepped back, took in some air. After several moments, his face softened, his words almost apologetic in tone: ‘Really, Wiktor, you’ve been here a year. You haven’t given me one lead, one hint of anything worth addressing. Is my man blind?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  He moved over, put an arm over my shoulder. ‘Rooks, you’ve got a good name. I don’t want to put you in the battlefield. I don’t. But if you can’t get it done back here, what can I do?’

  I didn’t want to be in combat, no sane man did, but I was repelled by this idea I had to be sheltered. ‘I am not afraid to fight, Captain.’

  He smiled, looked into my eyes. ‘I know that Rooks, but are you afraid to talk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then six names. In the next report, at minimum.’ He patted my shoulder supportively, all problems apparently solved. ‘Find me the worst and give them to me. Whoever they are.’

  I nodded, wanting to end the conversation without a verbal commitment, but his eyes wouldn’t release mine. ‘We have an understanding then, Wiktor. No excuses.’

  *****

  We re-entered the meeting hall. Juskevics was still droning on. ‘We’ve adapted their use and have had extended success in the field. There is no doubt that the enemy has had an enormous advantage employing their own variations of Boers tactics against…against more conventional opposition.’

  That did it. Juskevics’s enthusiasm had taken him too far. By ‘conventional opposition’ he meant them: the generals, their men, their old ideas and everyone here still awake knew it.

  A few stood up. Several rapped on the table.

  Meeting adjourned.

  *****

  We just might be home for Christmas. Or a few days afterward, at any rate.

  The men took a moment to pose for photographs with the captured German cannons, straddling the giant barrels, leaning against the bases, trying to look their best for fathers, mothers and girlfriends; for lovers not yet met, for sons and daughters unborn.

  No matter how slow the camera’s shutter, or painful the touch of arctic winds, they remained unmoving. Proud smiles; cockily raised chins; a swagger in the way each leaned on his comrade or puffed out his breast.

  This is how it was. This is what we did.

  Nearer to me, hundreds of German prisoners sat on their knees, loosely herded into an oval collection. Their hands long since dropped from behind their heads, they attempted to clear out dry spots in the snow beneath, begged for cigarettes, or used a palm to dam an icy bullet wound. The surgeon still busy with Latvian troops, they knew it would be a long while before aid came to the enemy.