Michael Moorcock - Breakfast in the Ruins

Doubtless the Russian, sitting in silence and glaring moodily out of the window, noticed no great difference between the streets on this side of the river, but Karl saw prosperity here. There were more food shops and there was more food sold in them. They went through a market where stalls sold shellfish, fried cod and potatoes, meat of almost every variety, as well as clothing, toys, vegetables, cutlery -everything one could possibly desire. With a fortune in his pocket, Karl's daydreams took a different turn as he thought of the luxuries they might buy; perhaps on Saturday after they had been to the Synagogue. Certainly, they could have new coats, get their shoes repaired, buy a piece of meat, a cabbage...

The cab pulled up on the corner of Trinity Street and Falmouth Road. The cabby rapped on the roof with his whip. "This is it."

They pushed open the door and descended. Karl took another three sixpences from the Russian and handed them up to the driver who bit them, nodded, and was off again, disappearing into Dover Street, joining the other traffic.

Karl looked at the building. There was a dirty brass plate on the wall by the door. He read: "Seamen's Clinic." He saw that the Russian was looking suspiciously at the plate, unable to understand the words. "Are you a sailor?' Karl asked. "Are you ill?"

"Be silent," said Kovrin. "Ring the bell. I'll wait here." He put his hand inside his coat. "Tell them that Kovrin is here."

Karl went up the cracked steps and pulled the iron bell handle. He heard a bell clang loudly. He had to wait some time before the door was opened by an old man with a long white forked beard and hooded eyes. "What do you want, boy? " said the man in English.

Karl said, also in English: "Kovrin is here." He jerked a thumb at the tall Russian standing in the rain behind him.

"Now?" The old man smiled in unsuppressed delight. "Here? Kovrin!"

Kovrin suddenly sprang up the steps, pushing Karl aside. After a perfunctory embrace, he and the old man went inside, speaking rapidly to each other in Russian. Karl followed them. He was hoping to earn another half guinea. He heard little of what they said, just a few words—"St. Petersburg"—"prison"—"commune"—"death"—and one very potent word he had heard many times before—"Siberia". Had Kovrin escaped from Siberia? There were quite a few Russians who had. Karl had heard some of them talking.

In the house, he could see that it was evidently no longer a doctor's surgery. The house, in fact, seemed virtually derelict, with hardly any furniture but piles of paper all over the place. Many bundles of the same newspaper stood in one corner of the hall. Over these a mattress had been thrown and was serving someone as a bed. Most of the newspapers were in Russian, others were in English and in what Karl guessed was German. There were also handbills which echoed the headlines of the newspapers: PEASANTS REVOLT, said one. CRUEL SUPPRESSION OF DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS IN ST. PETERSBURG, said another. Karl decided that these people must be political. His father had always told him to steer clear of "politicals", they were always in trouble with the police. Perhaps he should leave?

But then the old man turned to him and smiled kindly. "You look hungry. Will you eat with us? "

It would be foolish to turn down a free meal. Karl nodded. They entered a big room warmed by a central stove. From the way in which the room was laid out, Karl guessed that this had been the doctor's waiting room. But now it, too, stored bales of paper. He could smell soup. It made his mouth water. At the same time there came a peculiar sound from below his feet. Growling, thumping, clanking: it was as if some awful monster were chained in the cellar, trying to escape. The room shook. The old man led Karl and Kovrin into what had once been the main surgery. There were still glass instrument cases along the walls. Over in one corner they had installed a big, black cooking range and at this stood a woman, stirring an iron pot. The woman was quite pretty, but she looked scarcely less tired than Karl's mother. She ladled thick soup into an earthenware bowl. Karl's stomach rumbled. The woman smiled shyly at Kovrin whom she plainly did not know, but had been expecting. "Who is the boy?" she asked.

"Karl," said Karl. He bowed.

"Not Karl Marx, perhaps?" laughed the old man, nudging Karl on the shoulder. But Karl did not recognize the name. "Karl Glogauer," he said.

The old man explained to the woman: "He's Kovrin's guide. Pesotsky sent him. Pesotsky couldn't come himself because he's being watched. To meet Kovrin, would have been to betray him to our friends... Give the boy some soup, Tanya." He took hold of Kovrin's arm. "Now, Andrey Vassilitch, tell me everything that happened in Petersburg. Your poor brother, I have already heard about."

The rumbling from below grew louder. It was like an earthquake. Karl ate the tasty soup, sitting hunched over his bowl at the far end of the long bench. The soup had meat in it and several kinds of vegetables. At the other end of the bench Kovrin and the old man talked quietly together, hardly aware of their own bowls. Because of the noise from the cellar, Karl caught little of what they said, but they seemed to be speaking much of killing and torture and exile. He wondered why nobody else seemed to notice the noise.

The woman called Tanya offered him more soup. He wanted to take more, but he was already feeling very strange. The rich food was hard to hold down. He felt that he might vomit at any moment. But he persisted in keeping it in his stomach. It would mean he would not need to eat tonight.

He summoned the courage to ask her what the noise was. "Are we over an underground railway?"

She smiled. "It is just the printing press." She indicated a pile of leaflets on the bench. "We tell the English people what it is like in our country—how we are ground under by the aristocrats and the middle-classes."

"They want to know?" Karl asked the question cynically, His own experience had given him the answer.

Again she smiled. "Not many. The other papers are for our countrymen. They give news of what is going on in Russia and in Poland and elsewhere. Some of the papers go back to those countries..."

The old man looked up, putting a finger to his lips. He shook his head at Tanya and winked at Karl. "What you don't hear won't harm you, young one."

"My father was a printer in Poland," Karl said. "Perhaps you have work for him. He speaks both Russian, Polish and Yiddish. He is an educated man.

"There's little money in our work," said Tanya. "Is your father for the cause?"

"I don't think so," said Karl. "Is that necessary?"

"Yes," said Kovrin suddenly. His red cheekbones burned a little more hotly. "You must stop asking questions, boy. Wait a while longer. I think I will need to, see Pesotsky."

Karl didn't tell Kovrin that he didn't know where to find Pesotsky, because he might get another sum of money for taking Kovrin back to Whitechapel. Perhaps that would do. Also, if he could introduce his father to one of these people, they might decide to give him a job anyway. Then the family would be respectable again. He looked down at Ms clothes and felt miserable. They had stopped steaming and were now almost dry.

An hour later the noise from below stopped. Karl hardly noticed, for he was almost asleep with his head on his arms on the table. Someone seemed to be reciting a list to what had been the rhythm of the printing press.

"Elizelina Kralchenskaya—prison. Vera Ivanovna—Siberia. Dmitry Konstantinovitch—dead. Yegor Semyonitch—dead. Dukmasovs—all three dead. The Lebezyatnikovna sisters—five years prison. Klinevich, dead. Kudeyarov, dead. Nikolayevich, dead. Pervoyedov, dead. Petrovich, dead. And I heard they found Tarasevich in London and killed him."