Andrew Williams - To Kill a Tsar

It was madness. She was taking too much of a risk. If they had taken him it was too late. No purpose would be served by a second sacrifice. As the train began to pick up speed, she turned away, preparing to retrace her steps to the station hall with the last of the passengers. The guard’s van cleared the platform edge and rumbled into the night. A moment later she heard shouted commands and, glancing over her shoulder, she could see the waiting-room door was open, the gendarmes standing in close order to receive the prisoner. A second later it was beyond doubt: almost lost between two burly military policemen, half marched, half dragged — Grigory Davidovich Goldenberg.

She forced herself to stop and stare as everyone about her was doing. He would be escorted past her and she would look at him and hope that he might draw strength from her love and trust. A careless glance, a foolish word or gesture, and he would give her away, but she wanted him to know that she trusted him implicitly.

‘I thought I saw you here.’

Anna turned angrily. The old soldier from the train had sidled up like the serpent in the garden. ‘Why don’t you leave me alone?’

He shrugged non-committally: ‘Filthy Jew.’ And she saw his sharp little eyes turn to Goldenberg. ‘Probably one of those terrorists.’

The gendarmes’ boots crunched on the packed cinder surface of the platform in time, as if to demonstrate their power to grind men like Goldenberg into submission. His head was bent, his hair falling about his face, and she could see by the yellow station light that he must have put up a fight because his coat was torn in two places and dirty. She would offer him comfort if he saw her, offer with her eyes the love and reassurance he always sought. As they approached, she stared intently at his bent head, willing him, silently begging him, to look up.

And he did look up, with frightened eyes. But only as he was on the point of passing did he find her. He gave her a fleeting smile of recognition before turning his head away. Behind him, two gendarmes were carrying the portmanteau between them.

‘He smiled at you, didn’t he? I saw him smile.’

Anna turned quickly to look at the old soldier at her side. He was smiling at her too but it was not a pleasant smile.

‘I don’t know who he was smiling at,’ she snapped. ‘Perhaps he was smiling at you. Now why don’t you leave me alone?’ And without waiting for a reply, she began walking briskly towards the station hall.

‘It was you!’ he shouted after her. ‘Is he the friend you were meeting?’

What was wrong with him? He was still shouting after her. She cursed herself for taking foolish risks when the party was in need of the intelligence in her possession. As she entered the station hall, she turned to look back; the old soldier was hobbling after her.

‘There’s no reward for catching me, old man, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ she muttered under her breath. A choice: leave the station and take refuge in the town or face it out? There was a train to Moscow in twenty minutes and she had to catch it. Across the ticket hall she could see two gendarmes lolling in a very unmilitary fashion against the wall, casting lazy glances at the travellers gathered about the stove in the gloomy waiting room opposite. Instinct told her they were the sort who prefer things to be simple and do not ask many questions, and she trusted her instinct. She began scurrying noisily towards them. In the middle of the ticket hall she seemed to trip and her case clattered to the tiled floor, drawing the eyes of all on the concourse. With a little cry, she snatched it up again and ran breathlessly on, almost cannoning into the gendarme sergeant who had taken a step forward to meet her: ‘Hey, miss, is the devil at your heels?’

‘An old devil!’

‘Calm yourself, please,’ he said. ‘What is it?’ The sergeant was in his mid-forties, a little overweight, with bloodshot eyes and a florid complexion.

She dropped her suitcase and fumbled in her coat pocket for a handkerchief. ‘An old man. He’s mad. He’s followed me from Odessa. He says he loves me,’ she said, snivelling into her handkerchief.

The sergeant chuckled: ‘Well, at least he’s got good taste. Is that him?’ And he laughed again. ‘An old soldier, well, that explains it.’

Anna burst into tears: ‘But—’

‘There, there. I’ll speak to him.’

It was quite apparent from the expression on his face, even at thirty yards, that the old man was surprised and disappointed to find Anna in the company of a gendarme.

‘Here he comes,’ said the sergeant, ‘the light of battle in his eyes. What’s your name, miss?’

‘Anna Petrovna. A schoolteacher. I was visiting a sick friend in Odessa and am on my way to Moscow.’ Her voice trembled a little.

‘You have beautiful eyes, Anna Petrovna. Doesn’t she?’ The sergeant turned to the private at his side who was too callow to think of a chivalrous response. By now, the old soldier had made his long journey across the hall and was wheezing consumptively before them, too breathless to spit out his story. Anna shrank from him as if from a leper.

‘You should know better than to chase pretty young teachers at your age, old man,’ said the sergeant, wagging his finger at him. ‘You’ve had your day. Leave it to younger men.’

The old soldier managed to gasp a few words: ‘The Jew… the prisoner smiled, smiled at her…’

‘Ha. I bet you smiled at her too,’ said the sergeant good-humouredly. ‘I can’t stop smiling at Anna Petrovna.’

‘She was going to meet him, I tell you!’

The sergeant was taken aback by the ring of conviction in his voice: ‘What does he mean?’ he asked, looking down at Anna.

‘I have no idea,’ she replied, reaching for her handkerchief again. ‘He won’t leave me alone.’

‘She knows. She was going to meet the Jew! The terrorist. He smiled at her.’

‘Is that a crime?’ she shouted angrily. ‘Can I help it if a Jew smiles at me? Why would I be meeting a Jew?’ The vehemence of her attack shook the old man and she saw a flicker of doubt in his beady little eyes.

‘Shame on you, old man.’ The sergeant was losing his patience. ‘Go home and leave Anna Petrovna alone.’

‘I tell you…’ he spluttered. ‘At least ask her where she’s going, Sergeant…’

‘I know where she’s going,’ the sergeant said irritably. ‘Now get lost before you feel my boot up your backside.’

‘I served His Majesty for thirty years…’

‘I don’t care if you served the Frog Prince. Go home before I arrest you for wasting my time.’

The old man turned disconsolately away, pulling his green uniform coat tight about him for comfort, cursing under his breath.

‘Thank you,’ said Anna. ‘He was so persistent, and this crazy story about the Jew…’

‘At your service, Anna Petrovna, and be sure to remember Sergeant Alexander Dmitrievich in your prayers.’

‘I have a brother called Alexander Dmitrievich,’ she said with a demure little smile. How Alexander Mikhailov would laugh if he could hear her. ‘I will be sure to remember your kindness, Sergeant. God bless you.’

The waiting room was icy and no one was inclined to give up their place by the stove. For a while Anna was warmed by the recollection of her own audacity. What was more unthinkable in Elizavetgrad, she wondered, to be a Russian revolutionary or a Jew? Sometimes it was necessary to say and do disgusting things in the name of the people, to lie, to slander, to be someone hateful. They were preparing to blow the tsar and his family to pieces. None of them would take pleasure in carrying out the death sentence on Alexander Romanov, but it was necessary. And she owed it to Grigory.