The Last Train to Kazan. Stephen Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ taking a stroll through Cheka headquarters, even stranger corridors offices that led to waiting rooms that led to cells and interrogation rooms. A dormitory wing that exited onto a garage.

      ‘Just for your private information, Pyotr, the existing intelligence apparatus of the People’s Government is like a…choppy sea,’ Zezulin expounded. ‘The great Romanov ocean liner has sunk and now we are all helpless in the expanse of stormy ocean. For just a moment you see a survivor, you encounter them, and then another moment they are gone. The winds have carried them far away.’

      ‘Yes.’ Ryzhkov sighed. Walking along without the manacles, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. His arms kept involuntarily trying to come together over his fly. They walked along past stables, a garage, a shed where they stacked the firewood. Somebody was making telephone calls, couriers were running in and out. And always the telegraph chattering.

      ‘One has to make the most of every moment and every relationship. Moscow is a hotbed of spies and rumours. You wouldn’t believe it, Pyotr. Innuendo, fabrication, conspiracy…Around here everyone is supposed to keep quiet. There are layers and layers of secrecy, but the personnel? They’re all new, all of them think they are running the revolution all by themselves, everyone wants to be a hero, and everyone talks.’

      They crossed into a second courtyard; beyond was a gate, a big loading door that opened onto Sofika Street and freedom. Wagons, people going by, fanning themselves lazily against the heat of the summer’s day.

      ‘So this is what I know…’ Velimir Antonovich Zezulin said, offering Ryzhkov a cigarette.

      Zezulin was on a short leash to hear him tell it. Noskov was his new name, Boris Maximovich. ‘Nice, eh? I forget where I picked it up.’ Once he had wrung himself out and cleaned himself up, he’d discovered that he could still function. He’d regrown his tendrils and in the process his attention had been…well, somewhat heightened. He’d sensed things, many things in his newly sober state that he would have missed in the bad old days.

      And worse was coming. ‘The revolution, to be honest, is not going that well. The Allies are hungry and on the attack. The Czechs are the immediate problem.’

      ‘Czechs?’

      ‘Quite a few, fifty, sixty thousand taken as prisoners from the Austrians. Most of them are deserters, they wanted to cross over and fight against Austria for the freedom of a new Czecho-slovak country. You can lay the blame at their feet, if you want.’

      ‘So what was the problem?’

      ‘They were on the trains in the middle of Siberia, but it seems they made their own little revolution, and now they control the Trans-Siberian railway. To them you can add the Japanese, inscrutable as always, but always ready to make off with the riches of Siberia and put themselves in an even more dominant position over China. They’ve sent their soldiers into Vladivostok. Of course the Americans, the British and the French are involved. The Canadians are involved…’

      ‘It’s a civil war.’

      ‘Very good. I see you have been reading the newspapers. Which brings us to our masters, the Germans, the people who have everything and want more, eh?’

      Ahead of them was a disturbance, men shouting at the end of the courtyard. A shot rang out and Ryzhkov saw they had brought a man out for killing. Four guards, and another team of four for the truck. They must have made him kneel but then the shooter had mis-aimed and only wounded the prisoner, who was trying to crawl away as the blood spurted from under the collarbone. One of them stepped forward and put his rifle close to the man and pulled the trigger a second time. The sound of it and the slap of the prisoner’s head on the cobbles brought everyone to the windows. The killer was blushing furiously.

      ‘Regarding the Germanic menace, our leaders, Comrade Lenin, Comrade Trotsky, they do what they must. They are between the hammer and the anvil. Also there is pressure from within. Among us Bolsheviks there are factions within factions, wheels within wheels, masks behind masks, you get the idea. Lately we have been taking steps against these enemies beneath our own roof…as you see.’ They stood there smoking and watching the execution squad at work. It was a woman they next led out. Her thin wail came to them on the summer breeze.

      ‘Honestly, Pyotr, the problem is knowing which revolutionary tiger to back. Guessing as best you can who will come out on top in the internal struggles, or what might be going on beneath the surfaces. So all of us, we’re being put in a situation where we need to protect ourselves.’

      ‘So as better to serve the people.’

      ‘Yes, yes, yes, and so on.’

      The bullet, the clashings of the bolts on the rifles. The men bending to their work. The motor started up and the guards climbed in. He didn’t think it meant that she’d be the last one they killed for the day. There was always another truck waiting.

      ‘These much-vaunted personalities…privately I know they are acting strangely. Trotsky is curious. Dzerzhinsky is irritable. Comrade Sverdlov in his capacity as secretary to the Central Committee is the most overworked, and Comrade Stalin is nowhere to be seen. Necessarily, Comrade Lenin is constantly in touch with all sorts of people, the Germans and a lot of others as well. We are in Moscow, this is the centre of the world stage at the moment. Just so you are aware, Ryzhkov…’

      ‘So what’s this all got to do with me? Why did you save me? What do you want, comrade…Noskov?’

      ‘Yes, good. You remembered. I’ll tell you what I want on your way to the barracks. You’re Cheka now. We have to start a brand new file on you. We’re in a hurry, but let’s quickly get you cleaned up and into better clothes. Nothing too bourgeois, however,’ Zezulin said as they walked out of the prison.

      

      Woozy from the sudden intake of food, Ryzhkov floated deliriously through the Cheka baths, a somewhat cramped facility, and made an effort to stay awake during Zezulin’s recital while he tried on some newish clothing that had been obtained for his use.

      ‘As you probably know, last year the Imperial Family was moved from the old capital –’

      ‘Petrograd.’ Ryzhkov said. The word would never sound quite right on his tongue, patriotic as it was. It would always be St Petersburg for him. ‘Yes, I remember that. That was done secretly.’ He almost laughed.

      ‘Yes. Typical of secrets in Russia, everybody knows everybody else’s. Blinded by clouds of secrets, no one can recognize the real ones. At any rate, they were, yes, moved. The architect of this scheme was the unfortunate criminal Kerensky. He did it either because he was afraid the advancing Germans would capture the Tsar, or because he realized that possession of the Imperial Family might be an advantage in hypothetical negotiations,’ Zezulin muttered and shrugged.

      ‘Where were they moved?’

      ‘To hell and gone. Into Siberia. The town of Tobolsk, district capital, just beyond the Urals. I have never been there, of course, and I don’t know anyone who has. No, that’s not true. Rasputin, he was from a town on the Tobol. That’s the name of the river. There’s no railroad, they come down and get you there by steamer. Last year someone in the Provisional Government decided that Tobolsk was far enough off the face of the earth to be safe, so they loaded the Romanovs onto the train, pasted a Japanese Red Cross banner on the sides, kept the shades drawn when they went through the stations. Still, there were crowds waiting to throw flowers at them when they got off the boat. Big secret.’

      ‘Fine.’

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