David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

Paul left the square and walked north along the Dvortzóvaya, crossing an iron bridge over the Om past the steamboat wharf and onto Lyúbinski Prospékt. The Rossiya Hotel, he discovered when he found it, had a lot in common with much of what he had seen of Imperial Russia since returning: an air that suggested its best days were behind it. The once fine façade only vaguely recalled an earlier splendour. Its most notable feature now appeared to be the grey lumps of ice cleared from its entrance and left piled either side of the doors like boulders. Inside the foyer Paul stripped off his coat under the eyes of a doorman who, seeing he was in uniform, diplomatically averted his gaze. At the desk Paul gave Mikhail Rostov’s name to the bored clerk who told him the suite number and that the lift was out of order. Paul took the stairs, leaving mud on an already filthy carpet. Outside the suite, feeling a sudden sense of trepidation, he knocked on the door.

The man who answered the door bore some passing resemblance to his cousin Mikhail Ivanovich although, to Paul’s surprise, the once-remembered features seemed to have coarsened under the pressure of superfluous flesh. His neck bulged out of his dress collar like bread proving in a tin. It was his height, though, that shocked Paul the most. Mikhail now stood a head shorter than he did.

As children his cousin had towered over Paul. He had been stronger, too, a fact Mikhail had always been eager to demonstrate. The intervening years, though, seemed to have added little to his stature while Paul, like a sapling free of his cousin’s shade, had grown.

‘Yes?’ Mikhail said rather irritably, and Paul saw his Uncle Ivan in the son’s face.

‘Mikhail Ivanovich,’ Paul said in greeting, managing to sound a deal heartier than he felt, ‘don’t you recognise me?’

Mikhail stared, dabbing deliberately at his mouth with the napkin he was carrying as if wishing to demonstrate the intrusion had interrupted his breakfast. His gaze dropped to the uniform and Kirgis coat Paul was carrying before, somewhat calculatingly Paul thought, allowing his petulant expression to give way to one of dawning recognition.

‘Cousin Pavel?’ he declared, as if Paul were the last person in the world he might have expected to come calling. ‘Is it really you? So it is. I wouldn’t have known you.’

‘Nor I you, Mikhail.’

They stood looking at each other for a long moment before Paul put out his hand. Mikhail took it, his grip, Paul found, unenthusiastic.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Surely Sofya told you? I came to Russia to see you.’

‘Sofya,’ Mikhail muttered, ‘of course, of course.’ He stepped aside, waving the napkin with the exaggerated flourish of a matador. ‘Come in, come in. I see you are still with the Czechs. Sophie will be pleased to see you.’

‘She is with you then?’

‘Of course. Where else would a sister be but with her brother?’

Paul thought that a bit rich since Mikhail had abandoned her in Petersburg. But he said nothing and followed Mikhail along a short corridor to a sitting room. He was well-dressed, Paul noted; street clothes but stylishly elegant. And decidedly newer than the worn suit Sofya had been holding for his return to Petersburg.

‘Sofya,’ Mikhail announced loudly as they entered the sitting room, ‘look who has come to see us. It is our cousin, Pavel Sergeyevich!’

She was sitting at a table by the window. What was left of their breakfast cluttered the white tablecloth. She half rose, dropped back into the chair, then stood more steadily.

She had regained some weight in the three months since he had last seen her. Not as much as her brother, certainly, but enough to soften the definition of her jaw line and to fill out those hollow cheeks he remembered. He saw a blush on them now, but was it health or his sudden appearance that gave them colour?

‘Sofya,’ he said.

She was better dressed than when he had last seen her, too. The old sarafan had been replaced by a high-collared morning dress that reached ankles and wrists, covering those taut limbs he remembered so well. The thought of the incident on the train brought a sudden colour to his own cheeks.

‘Pavel…’

Stupidly, he found himself holding out his hand. He had kissed her when they had parted but Mikhail’s presence, standing as he was between them, constrained Paul to formality.

‘But what are you doing in Omsk?’ Sofya asked, taking his hand.

‘I’m here with Admiral Kolchak. We’ve been in Ekaterinburg and just returned from Chelyabinsk. We were supposed to—’

‘The admiral in Omsk?’ Mikhail interrupted.

‘We got in late last night,’ Paul explained.

Mikhail tossed his napkin onto the table. ‘I must go,’ he said, frowning at Sofya. ‘If Krasilnikov calls tell him I’m on my way.’ He glanced at Paul, executed the slightest of bows and hurried from the room without another word.

‘But Mikhail…’ Sofya called after him, ‘Pavel has come all this way…’ Her voice trailed off as the door slammed.

She was embarrassed. ‘You must forgive him,’ she said.

Paul felt embarrassed for her. ‘He must be a busy man.’

‘I hardly see him.’

‘Perhaps it was a bad time to call. You are still having breakfast. I should go.’

She regarded him with the same expression of irritation he recalled from Petersburg. Then her shoulders relaxed and with them the formality.

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Pasha,’ she said. ‘Sit down for goodness sake. Have some coffee.’

He grinned at her, draped the great fur coat over a sofa and pulled out a chair. ‘It is good to see you again. So you got out of Kazan safely.’

‘Yes. To Samara, although not for long. The Bolsheviks were so close. When the Treasury was transferred to Chelyabinsk we went with Mikhail on the train.’

‘He is with the Finance Ministry, I understand.’

‘No,’ Pasha, ‘he was with the Interior Ministry. Like Papa. I told you in Petersburg, surely. Although, of course’ she added, ‘there is nothing left of it.’

‘But—’ he began, then said, ‘never mind,’ assuming Kolchak had made a mistake. ‘And after Chelyabinsk?’ he asked. ‘You came straight here to Omsk?’

‘That was a rather hurried affair,’ she admitted. ‘It had something to do with the government here. Mikhail has connections with them.’ She poured coffee from a silver pot. ‘And you, Pasha? After Kazan?’ She looked at him pertinently. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Oh, all over the Urals,’ he said. The coffee, he found, was the best he had drunk since leaving England. ‘I’ve been with the Czechs and Slovaks for the most part. Although for the past ten days I’ve been with a British colonel and Admiral Kolchak touring the front.’

‘Mikhail says he is the man to save Russia.’

‘Kolchak?’

‘The government here is weak and will soon fall. Mikhail says the SRs are obstructive. It is like Petersburg before the Bolsheviks. They do nothing but argue. There is no law. It isn’t safe to walk the streets. Now the admiral has returned things will improve.’

‘I wouldn’t be too quick to pin your hopes on Kolchak,’ Paul warned her. ‘Things are bad at the front. The Peoples’ Army is outnumbered and they’re hopelessly ill-equipped. They’re doing their best but without—’

‘Mikhail says they are nothing but a rabble.’ Sofya nibbled at a piece of toast. ‘It’s the fault of the SRs and Avksentiev, of course. The Stavka are raising a new army, one that will be properly equipped.’

‘There were Stavka officers with Kolchak,’ Paul said. ‘All of the old school. All they seem to want is to return to the old ways.’