Andrew Williams - To Kill a Tsar

‘I’m sorry. Things have been difficult…’

She could say no more, she was beaten, her voice strangled with emotion, the strain of the secret suddenly too much. And before he was able to kiss her, even with the old woman in the room, she burst into tears, burying her head in his shoulder.

‘Darling, darling,’ he whispered, kissing her hair, holding her tight. ‘Shush, darling.’

He tried to wipe her tears, kiss her tears, but she did not want him to see her face. She was ashamed of her weakness.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Tell me.’

‘No.’

‘Tell me.’

She was not ready to tell him. Not yet. ‘Things are difficult. But I’m all right.’

He tried to lift her chin and this time she let him, and he kissed her wet cheeks and eyelids and then her lips. Drawing her to the table, he made her sit beside him, her hands small between his hands.

‘You look tired, have you been sleeping properly?’

No, she was not sleeping, and she admitted she had been feeling unwell.

‘Then you must let me examine you,’ he said. ‘Your personal physician, remember?’

‘Later.’

They sat gazing at each other in silence. He was trying to offer an encouraging smile, but there was something intense in his expression that unsettled her. ‘Anna, you know I love you,’ he said, and he lifted her hand to his lips. ‘I love you very much.’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t be cross with me, but I know you’re…’

‘Oh, God.’ And her heart beat faster, her chin quivering as she fought the urge to dissolve into tears again. ‘I’m sorry, Frederick.’

He was clearly taken aback. ‘Perhaps we’re talking at cross purposes,’ he said gently. ‘What is it you think I know?’

She examined his face, his soft hazel eyes, a little smile of encouragement playing on his lips: ‘No, you speak.’

The smile disappeared at once and he took a deep breath and sighed, as if bracing himself for what he clearly thought would be a difficult conversation.

‘The cheese shop on the Malaya Sadovaya. I know, that is, I’ve guessed what you are doing…’

She felt a fleeting sense of relief. ‘How do you know?’ she asked. ‘You’ve told no one?’

‘No. But now I know, it has to stop.’

She must have been gaping at him in amazement because he could not help a small smile. ‘Please, Anna, understand, I can’t let this happen. I don’t want to betray anyone but I won’t have any part in the killing of innocent people.’

‘What are you talking about?’ And she flushed hot with anger, tearing her hands from his. ‘Frederick, you’re talking nonsense. It’s a shop.’

‘Tell me you’re not trying to kill the tsar.’

‘That’s the party’s business, not yours,’ she said, her voice trembling with fury.

He reached for her hand again but she would not give it to him: ‘What do you want me to do, Frederick? Tell my comrades my lover is threatening to betray them to the police. I thought you loved me.’

‘Please try and understand, I can’t let it happen. I won’t be party to murder.’

‘It will be the end for us, I won’t see you again,’ she said, her body rigid, her face white, fists clenched tightly beneath the table.

‘I would never betray you,’ he said, ‘but I won’t be party to murder.’

‘But knowing of the shop doesn’t make you party to murder. And it’s not murder. He’s a tyrant.’

‘And those who will be travelling with him?’

‘Stop it, Frederick,’ she said, almost pleading with him. ‘Stop it. Please, please stop it.’

He was at a loss to know what he could say to placate her, conscious too, perhaps, that he was in danger of taking an irrevocable step.

‘Stop it, Frederick,’ she said again. ‘Don’t. I thought you wanted me.’

‘You know I do.’

‘Then what are you thinking?’

The curtain rattled urgently and the old woman was standing in the doorway hugging herself, breathless, quite terrified.

‘What is it?’ Anna snapped at her in Ukrainian.

‘They’re in the street…’ she stammered.

‘Calm yourself. How many?’

‘Many.’

‘What is it?’ Hadfield asked, touching her arm.

‘The police.’

He moved towards the window, but before he could reach it they heard the thump of a fist at the door below and someone shaking the handle, then the echo of voices and steps on the stairs. The old woman began to whimper with fear.

‘You must go.’ Hadfield was pulling at her arm. ‘Go, Anna. Leave here. Go now.’

‘You must come too. You can’t be found here.’

There was the sound of splintering wood.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll do what I can. Go.’

‘Frederick, I’m going to have a baby.’

He stood gazing in astonishment at her.

She reached for his hand and held it to her face and for a moment he bent to rest his forehead against hers.

‘Now go,’ and he snatched his hand free and turned to the door. And then she ran. Racing through partitioned rooms, sweeping curtains aside, pushing past anyone who stepped in her way, until she found the other stairs. Down and then on into the darkness.

Anna made her way to the flat on the Voznesensky. Vera Figner let her in without comment and led her by the hand to the couch, where she lay in the early hours rolling the same questions through her mind until the worst was all she was able to believe. Then, at nine o’clock the following morning, they had news that the gendarmes had visited the cheese shop again and she knew he had failed her. But she could not speak of it to her comrades. She lay curled beneath a blanket while Vera gave instructions to the scouts. She was frightened as she had never been before. Please God she was wrong.

An hour later they received word that Zhelyabov was missing. He had arranged to meet Nikolai Kibalchich and the four bombthrowers, but they had waited for an hour and were still waiting,

‘Are you strong enough to go to them?’ asked Vera.

Kibalchich had found abandoned workings close to the river at the northern edge of Vasilievsky. The ground was frozen hard enough to keep the market gardeners from their plots, and the vast wooded cemetery lay between them and the island’s lines. They would be safe there from prying eyes and Anna would patrol the edge of the gravel pit to be sure. A fine mist was rising from the land, the weak sun shaping it into layers, the sky luminescent, a diffuse light, the towers of the city churches lost on the soft horizon. The winter silence was broken only by the distant cawing of the rooks in the cemetery treetops and from time to time the voices of her comrades as they practised in the pit with their dummy grenades.

Kibalchich called to her, his eyes shining like a schoolboy’s: ‘We’re going to try one with a charge.’ It was heavy, the size of a large grapefruit, and the worker — she was not to know his name — threw it with both hands. It detonated on the frozen ground with a sharp yellow flash and a fizzle like a damp firework.

‘Well, it works. That’s a comfort,’ said Kibalchich cheerfully, ‘but they’ll have to be close to be sure of killing him.’

When the bombers had learnt all they could of trajectory and blast radius they left to ready themselves as best they could for the following morning. Kibalchich took a droshky back with Anna to the Voznesensky apartment. Two sharp knocks followed by two more, the tinkle of the lock, the drawing back of bolts and Vera stood there with doubt and even a little fear written in her face.

‘They’ve taken Andrei Zhelyabov. Last night.’