David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

‘Who is Olga Volokoskaya?’ asked Sofya.

‘It’s more likely,’ Valentine said, ‘that since they’ve had no communication from her they’re assuming you arrived safely.’

Paul stared moodily into his tea. “No communication”, he supposed, was a euphemism that meant another woman’s death could be laid at his door.

‘I suppose they’ll think I killed her—’

‘You killed someone?’ Sofya asked in amazement. ‘Who?’

‘No one,’ said Paul.

‘Don’t forget that fellow in London,’ Valentine added helpfully. He placed a sugar lump between his teeth and sucked his tea through it noisily, muzhik -style. Sofya looked at him distastefully.

‘Sorry,’ Valentine said through the sugar lump. ‘Picked up the habit in the factory. I was acting the peasant up from the country.’ He put his cup down. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t worry too much about Volokoskaya, old chap. They’ve got more on you than disposing of an old woman. They’ve got this idea that you’re here to prepare the ground for General Poole.’

‘General who?’

‘Poole. The officer in command at Murmansk. Now they’ve landed at Archangel, Poole’s moved there. General Maynard has taken over in Murmansk.’

‘They landed then?’

‘The beginning of the month.’

‘Trotsky put pamphlets on the streets about that,’ Sofya said. ‘He said it was a capitalist conspiracy. No one was sure it was true.’

‘What makes the Bolsheviks think I’ve got anything to do with that?’ Paul demanded.

Valentine looked perplexed. ‘Well haven’t you, old man? You’re here to liaise between the Legion and Kolchak. The Bolsheviks have quite reasonably jumped to the conclusion you’re connected with the Archangel landings as well. Not that it matters one way or the other.’

‘Not to you, perhaps,’ Paul said. ‘You’re not the one they’ll shoot if they find you.’

‘If it’s any consolation,’ Valentine said, ‘I rather think they’ll shoot us all if they find us. Your charming cousin, Sofya Ivanovna here included.’

‘But Sofya’s got nothing to do with it.’

‘She’s a Rostov,’ Valentine said. ‘That’ll be all the reason they’ll need. They’re looking for Pavel Rostov, don’t forget. It’s just as well you’re here under another name. I assume they gave you papers in Finland?’

Paul took them out of his pocket and handed them across the table.

‘Well, if they are looking for me,’ he said, ‘the first place they’ll try will be the Rostov house. If they do, it’s just as well Sofya came with me, isn’t it?’

‘Absolutely,’ Valentine agreed, examining Paul’s papers. ‘These look pretty good to me.’

‘They took them off some poor blighter who died in the Finnish camps. Sofya thinks they’re no good.’

‘They’ve started changing the identity papers on a regular basis,’ Sofya told him. ‘They only last a couple of months now before you have to get new ones. And because of the demand you don’t have to have a photograph now.’

‘So much the better,’ Valentine said, looking at the photo that was supposed to be Paul. ‘Boris Vladimirovich Alenkov. Well it’s safe to assume no one’s going to be looking for you by that name.’

Paul avoided Valentine’s gaze and started playing with his cup.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘There was a woman at the house,’ Paul admitted. ‘I told her my name was Alenkov.’

‘Fedorova,’ Sofya said.

Valentine shrugged. ‘Why should she remember you? And even if she does, there’s no reason for her to put two an two together.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ said Sofya. ‘That old pizdah never forgets anything.’

Paul turned to her in astonishment. Pizdah was the most vulgar Russian word he knew. And he only knew it because he had once said it to his mother, Mikhail having assured him it was a compliment. It was the one time in his life his mother had ever hit him.

Valentine was laughing. ‘I didn’t expect to hear that word outside the factory floor.’

Sofya blushed, collected the cups and hurried out the room.

Paul felt embarrassed for her. ‘Have you found out who told them I was going to be on the steamer?’ he asked testily.

Valentine shook his head. ‘No time for that sort of thing, I’m afraid. I should imagine someone has talked out of turn.’

‘Lockhart? Perhaps he’s been careless about what he tells Gorky’s mistress. Or Ransome? You said he was pretty thick with the Bolsheviks.’

‘Not Lockhart, old man,’ Valentine assured him. ‘The Cheka arrested him last night. They’re trying to tie him to this Kaplan woman who shot Lenin. And that’s not the worst of it. They broke into the embassy here in Petersburg and shot Cromie.’

‘Cromie?’

‘The naval attaché. He’s been in charge since the ambassador left. They nearly got me, too. I was there for a meeting with Cromie and Harold Hall. Luckily I left early. I’m very much afraid we were betrayed.’

‘Who by?’

‘I’m not sure. There were a couple of Russian agents with us. They managed to get away.’ Valentine raised his eyebrows suggestively. ‘The Cheka were looking for evidence at the embassy that the British were involved in the shootings. Uritsky was shot in Dvortzóvvaya Square and the man who did it — Leonid Kannegisser, they say his name is — ran into the English Club before he was arrested.’

‘I thought that place had been closed years ago?’

‘Certainly, but its name is enough for the Cheka to make an imperialist conspiracy out of it.’

‘And is it?’

‘Is it what?’

‘An imperialist plot, like they say?’

Valentine smiled ruefully. ‘Well, that’s the thing, old man. I’m afraid Sidney Reilly’s fingerprints are all over it.’

‘This is the Armenian Jew?’

‘He’s not a bad fellow, actually,’ Valentine said. ‘He’s just apt to go off half-cocked.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It seems he was trying to organise a mutiny among the units that guard Lenin at the Kremlin. Came a bit of a cropper.’

‘ How a cropper, exactly?’

‘The guards were Lettish Rifles. Supposedly disaffected.’

‘But you said Trotsky brought Lettish regiments in to put down the Left SR coup!’

‘Yes. Apparently it turned out that the men Reilly was dealing with were agent provocateurs .’

Sofya was standing at the kitchen window looking out on a small back garden choked by weeds. Paul stood at her shoulder, succumbing to an impulse to apologise.

‘I’m sorry. For getting you into this, I mean. It would have been better if I hadn’t come to you.’

‘What difference does it make?’ she said, gazing out the window. ‘You said yourself they were going to evict me anyway.’

‘Yes but you weren’t in any danger until I came.’

‘Only of starving to death,’ she said. ‘Besides, if your friend, Olyen, is right and they’re looking for Pavel Rostov, they would have come to our house sooner or later.’

‘Yes, but you wouldn’t have known about me, would you?’

‘Do you think that makes any difference? You’ve a lot to learn about the Bolsheviks, Pavel. It’s not what you know, it’s what you are . Sooner or later they would have arrested me simply for being Mikhail’s sister.’

‘I can’t believe even the Bolsheviks are that arbitrary.’

‘No? I’ve heard they regularly take the families of men they regard as enemies. We’re all class enemies now, anyone who comes from a family that had property.’

‘That’s just political rhetoric,’ Paul said.