Harry Bingham - The Lieutenant’s Lover

‘You say it,’ he said. ‘Down with Lenin.’

She smiled and shook her head.

‘Ah, pardon me, comrade worker, you should be saying “Up with Lenin! Power to the people!” Go on. Say it.’

She laughed, and again shook her head. But this time her denial went only skin-deep. It was a game.

‘Comrade Lensky, the revolution will fail if you don’t shout.’

They looked at each other, grinning, then they both began to shout.

‘Up with the revolution!’

‘Down with the Bolsheviks!’

‘Power to the people!’

‘Bring back the Tsar!’

‘Up with Lenin!’

‘Down with Lenin!’

They shouted as loud as they were able, till the rocks boomed back with the sound of their voices: ‘Lenin… Lenin… Lenin…’ Then, because Misha had the louder voice, Tonya jumped at him and pushed him backwards into the snow. He grabbed her leg and pulled her after him, and they rolled over and over together, as though the snow were the softest of white feather beds. They could hardly breathe for laughter.

They grew a little more serious. They stood up and brushed themselves down. The hunting lodge stood ready for them.

Misha bowed. ‘ Mademoiselle Lensky, je te presente le chateau Malevich .’

Until he’d been seven, Misha, like many Russians of his class, had spoken French with his mother, and he spoke it now with a kind of careless elegance, which Tonya secretly found daunting. But she curtsied low and gave Misha her hand so that he could escort her, like a grande dame , across the heaped up snow to the lodge itself.

The interior was bleak, dark and cold. It had an intimidating, depressing feel and Tonya’s heart sank. But there was a stove and the wooden walls were mostly draught-proof and there were no vermin of any kind. Misha dug a lamp out from somewhere, lit it and got to work straight away on lighting a fire. The red spit and crackle of the kindling immediately lifted Tonya’s spirits again. She took the lamp and bustled around the hut, exploring her new domain. There was a bed with an old feather mattress, some store cupboards full of bits of old harness or hunting gear whose use she didn’t know. There was a sackful of potatoes that Misha had brought out; also a stack of logs, oil for the lamp, some cooking pots, and, in one cupboard, a small store of tea and sugar which made Tonya gasp for joy. She came back to Misha, whose fire was now beginning to blaze.

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

‘I love it.’

Misha stood up, smiling. ‘Bugger Lenin. And bugger the whole blasted lot of them.’

‘Apart from Rodya.’

‘Yes, good old Rodyon, apart from him.’

Tonya stepped into Misha’s arms and by a shared understanding they began a slow dance around their new room; a waltz again, but not a fast one; slow and deliberately graceful. For almost the first time, Tonya didn’t just dance the steps correctly, she gave herself to them and her upturned face seemed shot through with something grave, almost spiritual. Misha didn’t try to break into her mood. He just danced in silence, making sure not to disturb her rhythm.

And then, after a while, she changed posture and grinned. Misha suddenly speeded up, and they shot around the room, whirling and stamping, until they spun apart laughing. That night, though they heard wolves howling outside, they slept in bed with each other, feeling absolutely safe, absolutely secure for the first time for years.

That winter, Tonya was able to spend half her time or more with Misha. When the weather was bad and the storms came in, they didn’t even go to work, knowing that the power would be down and there would be nothing for them to do. Misha had borrowed a shotgun from somewhere, and shot and snared rabbits, pigeon, and other game. They ate well. In the long hours of darkness, they talked, or made love, or danced, or made plans. Misha began to teach Tonya French, then – deciding French was of no practical value – he switched and began teaching her German, which Tonya was quick to pick up. When it was cold, they loaded their stove with fuel until its sides glowed red. They talked about everything on earth, and sometimes just spent long hours in happy silence with each other.

It was, by far, the best period of their entire lives.

But as the thaw came, and snow began dripping and slopping from every roof, branch, rock and slope, their long winter idyll came to an end. Tonya was summoned back to her city hospital full time. Misha received instructions requiring him to relocate to a railway repair depot in Perm, six hundred miles and more east of Petrograd.

Tonya cried at the impeding separation, full of foreboding.

As ever, Misha saw only the positive side of things.

‘Perm is ideal. Out there in the provinces, the revolution won’t have changed anything too much. I’ll be able to get on with things. As soon as you can, you can join me. In a few years’ time, you’ll see, everything will be different.’

He was more right than he knew.

On the fifteenth of April, 1919, he left Petrozavodsk. His route took him first to Petrograd, then east to Perm. He sent a message to Tonya, asking her to meet him at Ladozhsky Station so they could say their goodbyes. There wasn’t time for him to wait for a reply so he just went through the tedious business of getting his ticket sorted out, hoping against hope that she’d find a way to see him off. The line moved forward and Misha got to the ticket counter.

‘Authorisation?’ said the clerk. ‘Ah, yes, priority. All right for some, isn’t it? And I suppose you’ve got a travel warrant too? Of course, you’ll need to get that stamped. Unstamped means nothing at all. That queue over there, by the glass windows. No, they’ve abolished the special trains. Over there, that window.’

The clerk shoved Misha’s papers back at him. His wodge of documents had mounted up over the past eight months, until it was now a compact little brick of grey papers, soft and fibrous, like blotting paper. Misha moved over to the window that the clerk had indicated. A crowd of starlings had flown under the arched roof into the station and now couldn’t find their way out.

He started again in another queue. The country was well into a civil war by now and there were soldiers everywhere. When he reached the head of the line, his papers were inspected again. There was a minor problem: one of Misha’s papers had been stamped but not initialled. Regulations stated that it had to be initialled as well as stamped.

Misha took back the document, and tucked some paper money inside it – kerenkas – currency issued by the Provisional government in the months before the revolution. The money was mostly worthless, but not entirely. The clerk took it with a shrug and initialled the offending document himself. Another four minutes and the all-important travel warrant was stamped.

Misha’s train had pulled in by now, and there was a surge of passengers towards it. Misha knew he ought to join them if he wanted any chance of a seat, but he still hoped to see Tonya. He went to the main entrance and waited there, hoping to catch sight of her. He saw two nurses, but both of them short and fat. He felt a jab of disappointment. A column of conscripts were being herded into the station at rifle-point. Inside the station, a whistle shrilled.

Misha could delay no longer. He turned back into the station, feeling suddenly lonely and afraid. He made his way towards the train, but his path was blocked by the column of conscripts. A man had just keeled over and there was a knot of other men around him shouting and arguing.

Misha began to negotiate his way through the mêlée, when there was a shout behind him. It was Tonya. She came bursting through the crowds, her face straining with the effort.