A Allen - Berezovo - A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Turning away from the window, he ordered his secretary to fetch his overcoat. The man obeyed with alacrity, reappearing almost instantly carrying a heavy dark woollen overcoat with fox fur around the collar. As he helped him on with the garment, the secretary asked: “Are you going out, Your Excellency?”

“Yes.”

“If anyone should ask, when shall I say you will return?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“But if something happens,” the man persisted, “where can I reach you?”

“I can’t tell you!” repeated Pobednyev testily, pushing him to one side. “It’s a confidential matter, do you understand? Confidential!”

With as much dignity as he could muster, the Mayor strode from his parlour, leaving the council servant nervously tittering and executing little hopping steps in the fashion of a country dance upon the worn carpet.

It took the Mayor less than three minutes to descend from his parlour and hurry the short distance to the police headquarters, his body bent against the biting cold. As he climbed up onto the boardwalk and stood hesitating in front of the uchastok ’s iron studded door, he was joined by the director of the town’s prison, Dimitri Borisovich Skyralenko. The two men eyed each other warily.

“Good morning, Your Honour! Have you come to see Konstantin Illyich?”

The Mayor admitted that this was his purpose, adding casually as he reached for the door handle that he had received a note from the colonel summoning him to a meeting.

“You too, Anatoli Mikhailovich?” muttered Skyralenko, drawing closer to the Mayor. “What’s it all about?”

“I don’t know, but it must be important.”

“In the note… did… did he say anything about burning it?”

The Mayor nodded solemnly. The prison director let out a sigh of relief.

“Mine too. I received mine at home. I thought that I had done something wrong. It’s hard to tell sometimes. But it can’t be so bad if you have been summoned as well.”

“Safety in numbers, eh?” suggested Pobednyev doubtfully.

The small man shrugged and fell silent. For a moment the two of them stood uncertainly, like two schoolboys waiting outside the headmaster’s office. Then impulsively the Mayor grasped the door handle again and, giving it a savage twist, pushed it open and stepped across the threshold.

Immediately before them lay a neat outer office that served as the charge room, in the far corner of which stood a counter manned by a burly sergeant. Seeing them enter, the policeman got heavily to his feet.

“Is the colonel in?” asked Pobednyev gruffly.

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

The sergeant, who at one time had been a school friend of the Mayor’s son, beckoned both men forward conspiratorially.

“He’s talking to Captain Steklov,” he told them quietly.

“I see,” said Pobednyev, giving Skyralenko a meaningful glance. “Please tell the colonel that we await his pleasure.”

The sergeant acknowledged this request with a salute at the same time motioning the two men towards the warmth of a small pot-bellied stove. Coming out from behind his desk, he crossed over to the door marked ‘Col. K.I. Izorov’.

It was an understandable error on the sergeant’s part to tell the Mayor and the prison director that the captain and the colonel were talking to each other. In his opinion, nobody would wish to venture into what was commonly called ‘Izorov’s lair’, unless he either had been summoned for an interrogation or had some urgent information to impart. The truth was that, besides an initial cool exchange of greetings, the two men had not addressed a single word to each other as they sat waiting for Pobednyev and Skyralenko to arrive.

Whereas lesser men might have wilted under the strain of sitting in silence opposite the Chief of Police, Captain Steklov considered this lack of communication appropriate in the light of the difference in their circumstances. For his part, breeding and his uniform released him from any such commonplace pressures toward polite conversation. He had already spent ten months as commanding officer of the garrison at Berezovo and, although much of his time was occupied with his military duties, he was astute enough to have already formed his own impression as to how the Chief of Police regarded him. The colonel resented his youth, his money and his pedigree. He thought him weak, possibly even effete, because of the meticulous care he took over his grooming. In short, the policeman despised him.

This troubled Captain Steklov not a jot. Not regarding himself as a professional soldier – his uncle, the prince, had purchased his commission after the death of his own son in the Far East – it amused him to see such a big fish in such a small pond become so annoyed by the presence of someone he could not bully. All this theatricality, with armed guards posted at the door and secret summonses in sealed envelopes. It was all such nonsense. How he yearned for the real drama of Petersburg! The sound of a coach and four rattling over the cobbles; the bright lights of the restaurants; the excited babble of a first night crowd. Eight months remained of his tour of duty in this miserable backwater. In September, provided nobody threw a bomb at the Tsar (God forbid!) or the rioting broke out again, he would be due a month’s leave. Until then, he had no alternative but to put up with whatever poor company the townsfolk provided. As his family’s sole heir, and with the expectation of receiving a sizeable fortune, it was not too great a hardship to endure. In the meantime, it was a positive relief that he had not had to engage this boorish policeman in inconsequential chit-chat, like some aged duchess at a ball. He felt that even the magnificence of his promised inheritance would be insufficient compensation for such an ordeal.

There was a knock at the door and, glancing over his shoulder, Captain Steklov saw the head of the sergeant appear briefly around the door and give a nod to his superior. A moment later, His Excellency the Mayor Anatoli Mikhailovich Pobednyev and Prison Director Dimitri Borisovich Skyralenko were ushered into the office.

Captain Steklov remained where he was as Colonel Izorov rose to greet the new arrivals. As the Mayor and the prison director settled themselves on either side of him, he acknowledged their presence with a languid inclination of his head then turned his attention back to his host. The three men watched in silence as Colonel Izorov unlocked the top drawer of his desk and drew out several pieces of paper before sitting down himself. As if he had suddenly become oblivious to their presence, the Chief of Police stared down at these documents, occasionally turning over a page with a frown, as if he were reading them for the first time. They waited for him to speak.

The tension in the room grew as the silence lengthened. Pobednyev began to shift uneasily in his seat. Skyralenko coughed twice after which he removed his spectacles and began polishing them nervously on his sleeve. The passing seconds had become a minute and then a minute and a half. Even Captain Steklov, irritated by the deliberate delay, ceased his bored examination of his boots and waited impatiently for Izorov to begin. But the Chief of Police was not to be hurried. When at last he did speak, it was in a half whisper so low that his small audience leant forward as one man to catch his words.

“Gentlemen, we have been paid a terrible honour! We are asked to receive into our midst fifteen of the most desperate and vicious men to ever taint the soil of Holy Russia. I refer to the ringleaders of the St. Petersburg Insurrection.”

The dramatic effect of this announcement, so long in the formulation, did not disappoint Colonel Izorov. He watched as the faces of the two civilians registered in turn their shock, disbelief and then dismay. Skyralenko opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. The Mayor, once the momentary relief that his personal safety and liberty were not at risk had passed, struggled to grasp the enormity of what he had heard. Even the imperturbable features of Captain Steklov seemed to tauten as he waited for the next piece of news to burst like a shrapnel bomb over his head.