Ted Bell - Tsar

The general cleared his throat and gazed out at the assembled legislators with the look of a man whose hour had come at last.

“My great good friends, patriots all, I’ve come here today in grief but also in hope,” the general began. The reaction was instantaneous and overwhelming. Applause, loud and sustained, greeted this declaration. Some already knew and many were beginning to guess at what was to follow.

“My good friend President Vladimir Vladimirovich Rostov served our nation with great distinction and honor. We, in turn, honor his memory and mourn his tragic passing. But at this historic-”

“Murderer! Liar! Murderers, all of you!” shouted a female voice somewhere in the audience. A small white-haired woman was on her feet, screaming at the general. He nodded his head, and two OMON soldiers quickly made their way toward her from either end of the row where she stood. They lifted Rostov’s widow off her feet, still screaming, and carried her quickly to the nearest exit.

When the ensuing hubbub had died down, the general continued his speech as if nothing had happened.

“We, in turn, honor his memory and mourn his tragic passing just a few short hours ago. But at this historic moment in our motherland’s heroic history, we cannot dwell on the past even for a short time. Events allow us no such luxury. Russia must look to the immediate future. And the future, my dear colleagues, is entering the room even as I speak. Please welcome Count Ivan Ivanovich Korsakov, who humbly begs permission to enter this chamber and address this august body.”

The eruption was predictable. Save for a few naysayers scattered here and there among the rows of chairs terraced up the rear, the four hundred members of the Duma rose to their feet to cheer and applaud, turning to watch the great man enter the chamber.

Korsakov, dressed in a formal grey suit and wearing a long grey cape that draped from his shoulders, paused in the doorway for a moment, acknowledging their welcome with a modest smile, then strode down the center aisle to the podium. Reaching it, he turned and bowed deeply to those assembled. The roar that greeted this gesture was deafening, and he used the moment to replace General Kuragin behind the podium. Korsakov raised his hands in a futile effort to quiet the assembly.

The general remained at his side throughout, his sharp eyes moving over the crowd like the trained security man he’d once been. If there was to be any assassination attempt, it would come now, and he and his troops were ready for it. Many of the security men surrounding the podium were more than ready to take a bullet for their leader if it came to that. Not so Nikolai Kuragin. He wouldn’t take a bullet for anybody.

“I am a proud Russian citizen,” Korsakov began as the room finally hushed. “I’ve been one all of my life. And I have never been more proud of my country than I am at this moment. We have accomplished much since the end of the Soviet era. President Rostov and his predecessor, President Putin, deserve the lion’s share of the credit for this progress. Now we stand together on the threshold of greatness such as we have never known.

“My friends, Russia is once more a great power in this world and gaining strength every day. It is my will that she will become even greater. Her time has come at last, comrades. I stand before you today, a humble patriot but also a man ready to lead you to where a great and luminous future beckons. And that is Russia’s historic place, is it not? At the very forefront of the world’s great nations! This is where I vow to take our beloved Mother Russia!

“Therefore, I am privileged and deeply honored to place my name before you as a candidate for the presidency of the Russian Federation.”

He bowed his head briefly and waved to the crowd, stepping aside to let Kuragin return to the podium.

“Count Ivan Ivanovich Korsakov has allowed his name to be put forth as a candidate for the presidency. All in favor, signify by saying aye. All opposed, please stand.”

A chorus of ayes rose in the room and reverberated throughout the chamber. Korsakov, delighted, smiled benevolently at his supporters. It was happening, all of it, just as he’d always dreamed it would.

Once the noise had died down, a strange silence fell over the room as, one by one, trembling men opposed to Count Ivan Korsakov’s presidency rose to their feet.

Only a few stood up, of course, the hardened opposition, consisting mainly of diehard Communists and members of Kasparov’s New Russia party. The men who rose were brave indeed. They stood erect, their faces grey and shining with sweat, but their eyes were staring at the podium as the OMON troopers made their way to the ends of the aisles, waiting for a signal to drag them away. There was no shouting, no resistance from them, even though they knew that by standing in defiance, they’d sentenced themselves to life in the gulag.

Or worse.

Korsakov, his eyes scanning the faces of the men who dared oppose him, made a slight hand gesture, and the OMON troops withdrew and resumed their positions along the walls.

A thunderous explosion of applause greeted this show of magnanimity and mercy. Here, then, at long last, was a ruler for all the people!

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kuragin said, “it would appear that Russia has a new president! President Korsakov, would you say a few words?”

Then, from one of the last rows in the great hall, came a single voice, rising above the rest.

“Tsar!” the man shouted. “Tsar! Tsar! Tsar!”

The chanting of that word in the chamber was startling. It had remained unused in Russia since that terrible night in an Ekaterinberg basement in 1917, when the last Tsar and his family had been executed, their bodies dumped in a well deep in the forest.

But the men and women of the Duma remembered how to say that word, and the swelling of it grew until it filled the hall, every single one of them stamping their feet and shouting at the top of their lungs.

“Tsar! Tsar! Tsar!”

President Korsakov had moved away from the podium. He stood quietly, hands clasped behind his back, his head lifted high, his eyes shining. After a time, he thought the chant might go on for hours if he didn’t stop it, so he stepped back up to the podium and said nine historic words into the microphone.

“I accept with honor this ancient and noble title.”

Pandemonium, joy, and glee greeted his words.

Russia, after ninety-plus years, had a new Tsar.

HAWKE REMEMBERED ELEPHANTS onstage, but that was all he could recall of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida , the first and last opera he’d ever attended. He’d been six years old at the time, seated between his parents in the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. Opera and ballet were not his bailiwick. He’d happily never seen a ballet in his life and was hardly looking forward to this one.

But nothing had prepared him for this moment.

From the very instant Nasimova appeared as a beautiful white swan gliding serenely across the frozen wintry pond, he’d been mesmerized. Perhaps it was simply Tchaikovsky’s genius at work, the full orchestra dipping and soaring with his inspiration. Perhaps it was the corps of ballerinas, each a white swan lovelier than the next. But whatever it was, Hawke felt a deep stirring inside, something moved within him that he’d not imagined even existed.

Rhapsodic , that was the word for how he felt, reaching for Anastasia’s warm hand in the dark. And a new sense of wonder at the mysteries of the schizophrenic Russian soul. It produced unholy monsters like Stalin, capable of murdering millions of his own people. And it produced men capable of imagining this loveliest of dreamlike fantasies.

Alone in the dark of the private Korsakov box with Anastasia at his side, he was entranced. He was actually leaning forward from his plush velvet seat, his elbows on the curved balustrade, his chin resting in the cup of his palms, his eyes sweeping the stage, not wanting to miss a single movement, a single note of the glorious music.