Andrew Williams - To Kill a Tsar

‘Yes, yes! It’s locked.’

Bang. A shoulder hit the door: ‘Open it now! Open it!’ Then another crash as the heel of a heavy boot struck the frame. ‘Open it!’

Morozov gave Anna a shove: ‘Come on. Let’s go.’ The shouting and the banging chased up and down the stairs, and on the landing below the landlady was at her door. ‘What are you doing, you can’t leave them…’

‘In the name of the executive committee of The People’s Will,’ said Morozov, cutting across her, ‘I warn you, Maria Alexandrovna, if you value your life you will leave them there. Do you understand me?’

He did not wait for an answer.

They thundered down the stairs and burst through the door at the back of the building into the snowy yard. Olga took Anna by the arm and they walked beneath the carriage arch and on to Nevsky.

‘We’ll go to the flat in the Izmailovsky district,’ said Morozov. He stepped off the pavement to hail a passing cab. Seconds later its sleigh blades slithered to a stop. ‘We’ll all squeeze in somehow,’ and he reached for Anna’s hand to help her to a seat.

‘No. I’ll join you later,’ she said.

Olga grabbed Anna by the shoulders and turned her quickly to look her in the eye. ‘You must come with us!’

‘There’s something I have — I want to do,’ she said, correcting herself.

‘What?’

‘It’s my concern.’

‘Everything we do is the party’s concern.’

‘You don’t believe that, Olga. You and Nikolai…’

‘I do,’ she said, sharply.

‘There isn’t time to argue now. The police could be here any moment. You go. Go now. I’ll see you later.’

‘We must go,’ said Morozov, pulling at Olga’s elbow. ‘Be careful, Anna. You’re an “illegal” now.’

She did not wait to see the cab pull away but walked on quickly, turning off the prospekt into a side street. No money, no clothes but the ones she was wearing, no home, no papers and wanted by the police, and yet she still felt the exhilaration of freedom won at great risk. And a thought, a hope had planted itself almost unnoticed in the tense hours of that day. It had flashed through her mind at the police station and again when she was cowering in the kitchen, and as the cab pulled alongside them on the prospekt it had been quite impossible to ignore.

The front rolled westwards after midnight, leaving Peter still and fresh for a few precious hours beneath a blanket of virgin snow. It was as if the wind had swept the filth and stench of a million people from the city, plastering the fissures in its buildings white and filling its rutted streets, bathing all in the fairy tale light of the late November moon. Gazing back across the frozen Neva, Hadfield was struck again by its beauty and his great good fortune. What was life in London to this? He had spent the happiest of evenings with his cousin, Alexandra, and their friends from the embassy, careering at breakneck speed down the great ice slide that had been erected in the Field of Mars. Not content to leave it there, they had dined well then set out on an exhilarating troika ride, wrapped together in bearskin rugs, silver harness bells tinkling, the driver whooping wildly and cracking the whip to warn the careless that they stepped from the pavement at their peril. His head a little fusty with vodka, happy and excited still, Hadfield had delivered his cousin to the English Embankment in a cab, then set off for home on foot. By the time he reached the end of Line 7, he was beginning to regret his own impetuosity, conscious of the hour and his list at the surgery later that day. The snow had drifted a little against the wall of the House of Academics, forcing him from the pavement into the street. It was only two minutes’ walk to his apartment, but for those minutes he was always on his guard, watchful, alive to the crunch of boots in the snow, careful to give doorways and courtyards a wide berth. Line 7 was quiet and badly lit and footpads had been known to make use of the winter darkness to set upon rich students reeling home along it after a good night out. His uncle had insisted he take a stout stick, and Hadfield made a point of changing his grip on its handle in case he had to wield it as a club. But the street was empty and he did not see or hear anything at all out of the ordinary. Disgusted with himself for his timidity, he stood on the step of Number 7 stamping and scraping the snow from his boots. It was after one o’clock and the dvornik would be sleeping or in a drunken stupor. Reaching into his coat pocket for his keys, he was turning towards the door when he caught a movement at the corner of his eye.

Something or someone had flitted into a doorway a little way up the street. Hadfield changed his grip on the stick again. He was still standing with the key in the lock between his fingers when the man stepped out of the doorway and began walking towards him. But it was not a man. It was a young woman who walked with upright carriage and a short purposeful stride. And he knew her at once: beneath the thick coat, the rabbit fur hat and scarf was Anna Petrovna Kovalenko. A frisson of excitement tingled down his spine. After weeks, months, out of the darkness as if in a dream or a fairy tale, why, what was it she wanted after all this time?

‘Miss Kovalenko. What a surprise.’

She stepped up to him and his heart jumped a little. She had pulled her scarf over her mouth and nose but even in shadow her blue eyes were twinkling like ice and he could not help but smile at the little frown lines on her brow.

‘Call me Anna. Are you well, Doctor?’

‘Call me Frederick. What are you doing here? How long have you been waiting? You’re shivering.’ He turned the key in the lock. ‘You must come in. I’ll light a fire.’

‘No, it’s just that—’

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘No.’

There was a fine crust of snow on Anna’s coat and hat and he could tell from the distance in her voice that she had been waiting some while and was chilled to the marrow.

‘Look, you’ve come to see me. It’s too cold to stand on the step,’ and he stood aside to let her pass.

She stood in the middle of his drawing room dripping on the rug, teeth chattering, too cold and exhausted to remove her coat and hat. Once the gas lamps were lit, Hadfield busied himself with the fire, drawing an armchair close.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘For what? Give me those wet things. Here.’ He handed her his dressing gown, and placed some trousers, a warm jumper and blankets on the chair. ‘Now is not the time to stand on ceremony. Go into my dressing room and change. I’ll arrange for the maid to bring you hot water.’

Would she do as he asked, he wondered, as he made his way down the stairs to the maid’s room? The poor girl had to be dragged from a deep sleep and it was some while before he could be sure she understood what was expected of her.

Anna had taken off her wet clothes and was wearing his dressing gown, curled in the armchair beneath a couple of blankets. She looked totally worn out, her head resting on her arm, her skin quite ashen.

‘We’ll have some tea, but first a glass of brandy.’ He went over to the drinks tray and poured a little into two tumblers.

‘It’s been so long. Didn’t you think of writing to say where you’d gone?’ he asked, handing her the glass.

‘Why should I? We’re just comrades.’

She was staring into the flickering fire, careful to avoid his gaze. Hadfield flopped into the chair opposite, his legs crossed, glass balanced on his knee. ‘Just comrades? Then why are you here?’

‘I’ll go, if you like,’ she snapped and lifted her eyes in an unequivocal challenge.

‘Of course you can’t go.’