Andrew Williams - To Kill a Tsar

‘Do you think I’m a sentimental revolutionary?’ she asked. ‘It’s different for you. I’m used to a simpler life than you and Vera.’

‘And the gentleman I saw you with at Madame Volkonsky’s?’

‘Who do you mean?’

‘The man sitting on the couch.’

‘Alexander? He’s a friend.’

The wariness in her voice and the colour that rose to her cheeks suggested more.

Hadfield hesitated, trying to find a propitious way to say what he wanted to say. ‘ C’est ton fiancé, n’est-ce pas? Cet homme, tu vas l’épouser. C’est evident. ’

Anna stared at him for a moment. ‘Are you trying to humiliate me, Doctor?’ she asked in Russian.

‘Of course not,’ he said, taken aback. ‘What on earth makes you think that?’

‘You are making fun of me,’ she said coldly. And she turned her back on him and began walking briskly towards the cab stand in front of the cathedral.

‘Miss Kovalenko, I don’t understand…’

Her step did not falter for an instant. She had clearly made up her mind to have nothing more to do with him that day.

‘Wait…’ He began to hurry after her.

Their little pantomime was attracting smiles and the comment of cabbies on the opposite side of the square, and a smartly dressed elderly gentleman in a top hat shook his head in disapproval as Hadfield hurried past. As he fell into step with her, Anna quickened her pace.

He reached for her arm: ‘Please. Look, I’m sorry but…’

‘Don’t touch me,’ she said, shaking herself free. ‘I didn’t have the privilege of an education like yours but I understand our people!’ She turned away from him with a disdainful toss of the head.

‘So you don’t speak French,’ he shouted after her. ‘Is that it?’ She had turned away from the cab stand, conscious of the glances they were attracting from the drivers. ‘This is ridiculous. Please stop.’

And she did stop, turning angrily to him. ‘You are drawing attention to us.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you couldn’t speak French,’ he said in exasperation. ‘It means nothing. I just thought perhaps that Alexander was your fiancé.’

‘What business is it of yours anyway?’ she snapped at him. ‘Now let me go.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I had no right to ask. And I’m sorry this afternoon has ended so badly.’ He was confused, a tangle of feelings, aching with regret and anger. ‘Let me see you to a cab.’

Her face softened a little with the suggestion of a smile. ‘No, I’m quite all right, thank you. And you should know he is not my fiancé. He’s a good comrade. He will never be my fiancé…’ For a few seconds she stood there avoiding his gaze, biting her bottom lip uncertainly, and then she continued. ‘I am not interested in such relationships…’ Something in his expression must have suggested he did not take this remark as seriously as she would have liked because she took an urgent step closer, fixing him with an intense blue stare. ‘Believe me, Doctor. Revolutionaries should not marry or have families.’

Hadfield pulled a sceptical face: ‘Aren’t socialists just like everybody else?’

‘No. I’ve given my life to the struggle — like Kondraty Ryleev and many others…’

‘And what of love?’

‘I will not change my mind, and…’ she hesitated and looked away again, the colour rising to her cheeks, ‘and you should know…’ She did not finish the sentence but stood there avoiding his gaze. The seconds passed, a minute, and worshippers began to trickle from the west door of the cathedral onto the pavement, old ladies hobbling home with their black shawls pulled tightly about them even on a summer evening.

‘What should I know?’

Anna turned to look at him and he was taken aback by the intense expression on her face — not of anger this time, or defiance or resentment, but a deep trembling sadness close to pain.

‘You should know I’m married.’

The cause of such confusion and not a little heartache was lurking in a doorway a short distance from the Church of the Assumption. Alexander Mikhailov’s gaze was fixed on the shadows beneath the splintered awning of a modest two-storey building. A low drinking den, like so many others in the Haymarket district, it was doing steady trade even on the Lord’s Day. Patrons were obliged to step over the prostrate form of an elderly peasant who had staggered no further than the door before collapsing in a stupor. No one seemed in the least concerned and Mikhailov wondered if the landlord was leaving the drunk on the step as barely living proof of the purity of his vodka. A couple of young women in gaudy rags were accosting all who came and went. That the broad fellow in workman’s clothes who had been following him for almost an hour should try to conceal himself close to frumps plying their trade was nothing short of pitiful. Still, it was a simple enough task to lose one police spy, the sort of challenge he enjoyed, but perhaps there were others.

Without looking left or right Mikhailov began picking his way round the empty market stalls and piles of rubbish, putrid and thick with flies, to the opposite side of the square. On most days of the week the market was bustling with peasants and merchants; this was the ‘belly’ of St Petersburg, with every manner of object and animal for sale, women and children too. Respectable folk only chose to visit the district on business, although Mikhailov had heard stories of literary pilgrims in search of Raskolnikov’s attic. And only the day before he had seen Dostoevsky in the street with a posse of admirers.

From the square, he walked at a steady pace to the Ekaterininsky Canal then along its embankment into the city. A little beyond Gorokhovaya Street he turned right into a gloomy courtyard and strolled nonchalantly across it to a door on the opposite side. It was open as he knew it would be. Up the bare wooden stair, across the landing and down again to the main entrance, where he paused for a moment to listen for his pursuer. Thump, thump on the bare boards behind him, and for the first time Mikhailov’s heart beat a little faster. Not one but two men. Too bold to be just informers. Slipping out of the front, he crossed quickly to a decaying four-storey apartment block a little way up the street and turned without hesitating through a wicket gate hanging loosely from its hinges. An old lady was sitting on a stool in the yard behind, two small children playing in the dust at her feet. He nodded politely to her as he made his way towards a door at the corner of the building opposite. Behind him, the creak of the gate and the scuffing of courtyard stones as his pursuers hurried towards him. No time to look. He reached into his jacket pocket, took out a key and unlocked the door. A shout and the clatter of boots as they broke into a run. Glancing back he could see they were close: two plain-clothes policemen. Time only to turn the key in the lock before the sound of a shoulder crashing against the door.

‘Open up!’ The beating of fists. He waited a moment, collecting his thoughts, his right hand on his pounding chest. It would be only minutes before the banging and shouting on the other side of the door roused the dvornik or one of the tenants. He must move quickly.

Mikhailov was a thorough man and he had gone to great lengths over many months to ensure his comrades would continue to benefit from his very particular skills. He found the servant’s corridor without difficulty and began weaving his way along it to the front of the building. An old lady in a black dress and goatskin slippers was struggling up the steps of the entrance hall with a bag of laundry. Mikhailov brushed past her and on into the street. Turning right, he walked as quickly as he could along the pavement without drawing attention to himself, crossing to the other side just beyond the railings of the Assignation Bank. A few yards further on he stopped outside a handsome yellow and white classical mansion, glanced left and right then retreated a step into the road to examine the windows on the first floor. At the bottom of the one on the extreme right there was a small blue diagonal strip of paper: it was safe to call.