Charlotte Hobson - The Vanishing Futurist

He hadn’t abandoned us. It was just that they wanted Slavkin to pursue his experiments in peace and quiet. I still had to talk to him, of course; for the baby’s sake, I would not be warned off, however hard Lunacharsky tried. But at least I didn’t need to worry about his safety.

On 14 March, the Moskovsky Komsomolets – a new paper for Party youth – ran with a simple banner headline: ‘The Vanishing Futurist!’ Slavkin had been awarded the title he would bear for the next fifty years. The piece began: ‘Scientist who claims to be creating the New Soviet Man disappears… is this the result of his Ground-Breaking Discoveries?’ Pravda picked up the story as well: ‘We have to transform ourselves, claims Slavkin. Has the brilliant inventor made the greatest sacrifice for the Revolution?’ The majority of both articles could have come from his last lecture; some sentences were quoted word for word. Yet there were a couple of details in the Pravda article – for example, I remember that the Capsule was described as ‘darkish silver, coated with iridium alloy’ and ‘about seven foot long’ – which seemed to suggest either that the author had seen it himself, or that Slavkin had described it to him.

Pasha and I together identified four main possibilities:

1) Slavkin, as a result of his experiments, had disappeared from Gargarinsky Lane on 19 January with the knowledge of the authorities; they had therefore registered him as working in a secret location for Soviet science. (This tallied with Anna Vladimirovna’s account.)

2) Slavkin had moved to the secret laboratory on the night of the 19th and had disappeared, as a result of his experiments, from within the secret laboratory.

3) Slavkin was still working in the secret laboratory and the Party was keen, for some reason, to promote the mystery of his disappearance.

4) Slavkin was somewhere else entirely, perhaps without the knowledge of the authorities, and again they were simply promoting the mystery of his disappearance.

A young man came to interview us for a newspaper article about the IRT. I began to describe to him our programme. After a few minutes he stopped me, frowning. ‘He sounds like an avant-gardist!’

‘Well, yes, I suppose he is.’

‘Hmm.’

Into his uncertain pause I inserted a question of my own. ‘May I ask, why the sudden fascination with Slavkin? Who had the idea for this article, for example?’

‘Well.’ He looked confused. ‘Why the fascination? I should think that would be obvious. He’s vanished, hasn’t he? He’s given his life to the cause of Soviet science – he deserves to be celebrated!’

‘But we don’t know he’s given his life. We don’t know if he is dead or alive, or anything about where he is or what he is doing…’

‘I think you’ll find there are people who know exactly what he is doing, and that’s where the orders are coming from.’ He smiled at me a little condescendingly. ‘Perhaps because you’re a foreigner, you find it hard to understand his action. But trust me, for a Soviet citizen there could be no more glorious fate.’

That evening Pasha and I quarrelled. Lunacharsky had made it clear that we should cease all our efforts to find Slavkin, and Pasha was concerned that we might make things difficult for him if we disobeyed. But I was now almost seven months pregnant and his words of caution meant nothing to me. ‘I have to see him, Pasha, just once, do you see? If only I’d known in that last week; if only I’d talked to him then – but think of this poor child. When he or she grows up, at the very least I’d like to be able to say that his father knew of his existence and was glad.’

Pasha went very pale. ‘Don’t cry, Gerty. I can’t bear it if you cry. I have thought of something… just a faint possibility, it might lead to nothing. Look, the list of research projects.’ He hurried to find it. ‘Look at these other names: Beloborodov, do you see, Yu. M. – isn’t that Miss Clegg’s old employer? Or is it his brother? He also seems to have been working in a secret facility until February, he has a line of stars by his name. I wondered if it was worth going to see them – he would know something about the system, wouldn’t he?’

There was no answer to my knock on the door of Miss Clegg’s apartment, but to my surprise, it opened to a gentle push.

‘Miss Clegg? Are you at home? Please forgive the intrusion—’

A voice came from the sitting room. ‘Enter!’

The room was dark and painfully cold. I found Miss Clegg sitting up in her bed, dressed in an overcoat and hat. She turned her head as I entered and seemed to be searching for me in the gloom.

‘Here I am, Miss Clegg, it’s Gertrude Freely, do you remember me?’ I said gently.

‘Of course I remember you, Gerty,’ she said. ‘I haven’t lost my wits. But my eyesight, I’m afraid, is not what it was.’

Coming up close to her I was shocked, not by her thinness – everyone was thin – or even her filmy eyes, but by the fusty, neglected smell of her room, the stains down her overcoat and her long, dirty nails, so unlike Miss Clegg. She looked in my direction and I couldn’t help a flash of uncharitable gladness at her affliction; if she could have seen my stomach, she would no doubt have had a great deal to say about it.

‘Well, Gerty, are you still living in that madhouse? You’ve ruined your reputation, you know, no good family will touch you now.’

I paused for a moment, then offered her the small parcel of bread I had brought for her. ‘I’m afraid this is all I had.’

‘I’m no charity case, you know,’ she snapped, but she reached into the bag immediately and began to eat, trying to hide her mouth with her hands. I looked away, moved almost to tears. ‘I’m still teaching, I receive my pupils like this too.’ She suddenly cackled. ‘Imagine that! I sit up in bed and my young men come and sit on the other end! That wouldn’t have done in the old days, would it?’

I laughed too. ‘No, our manners are very simple these days.’

‘Light me a fire, would you? There’s a few sticks of wood in that corner. I manage very well on my own, always have done, but if you’re here…’

Of course she’d been alone before the war too, in the days when I found her so infuriating, with her half-martyred, half-condescending air. She’d been surviving on her inexhaustible willpower even then.

‘Miss Clegg, I’ve come to ask you for your help,’ I said as I tried to get the fire going. ‘I’m searching for a friend of mine who’s disappeared. I wondered if you were still in contact with the Beloborodov family? I think they may know something.’

‘Gracious me, you plan to bother them about it, do you?’ Her voice drifted off. ‘The Beloborodovs are still living in their old home on Vozdvizhenka. They have suffered at the hands of the Bolsheviks, and they’re surrounded by informers, of course, so be careful how you speak to them.’

‘What were the names and patronymics of your employer, Miss Clegg, I can’t remember? And what was his specialisation – was he a scientist, like his cousin?’

‘Elizaveta Igorevna and Yuri Maksimovich. He was trained as an engineer, it was thought that the training would come in useful when he took over the family business – railways, as you remember. Now the poor man is a wreck. He was in prison for several months – it almost killed him.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘How they are surviving now, I cannot imagine,’ went on Miss Clegg. ‘Elizaveta Igorevna was such an impractical woman. She could hardly dress herself, and she had certainly never brushed her own hair. Send them my regards. They don’t visit me any more. No doubt they are too busy, but if they had the time…’