The Last Train to Kazan. Stephen Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ And they obviously must have taken some valuables with them. We have lists, of course, but lists, being what they are, never include everything.’

      Ryzhkov was studying himself in the mirror. Still in reasonable condition, he thought. Newly shaved but not shorn. It would take some time for his weight to come back. He fit his simple suit well, the kind of thing a clerk might wear to and from his office: a shirt that was worn but free of actual holes, a homburg that made him look like an idiot, and that he resolved to get rid of as soon as possible. Only the shoes were out of place. Not a clerk’s lace-ups with mandatory shiny toe caps, but heavier workman’s boots. Still muddy from use. Shoes made for walking, and heavy socks to match. They sat on a low stool beside the mirror. Zezulin had recommended them.

      ‘Then in April, as soon as the ice broke and they could get a steamer back downstream, they were moved again, this time to Yekaterinburg,’ Zezulin said.

      ‘Yekaterinburg? Why there?’

      Zezulin shrugged. ‘Different people say different things, but you might think of it as a philosophical tug of war, a jurisdictional dispute. The city of Yekaterinburg is held by the Ural Soviet, a very committed bunch of hard-working, hard-drinking miners, men who have spent their proletarian enslavement toiling for the mineral barons. They have grievances. They pulled the hardest, got the least, etc…’

      ‘All right.’

      ‘And, as far as anyone knows, that is where they are now.’

      ‘Yekaterinburg?’

      ‘Unfortunately Yekaterinburg is an unfashionable city, but revolutions bring hardships on us all.’ Zezulin stepped in front of him and tugged on Ryzhkov’s cravat, trying to get it straight. ‘A great many people would like to possess the Romanovs. Several persons in various countries have offered them sanctuary. Unofficially, of course. And, naturally enough, sums of money are mentioned. We’re not sure exactly. It’s all secret. Remember these are aristocrats. People with the best pedigrees have persuaded all their friends to lend a hand. The British, who are always into everything; your masters the French; all sorts of people are coming up with rescue schemes.’

      ‘So…bribes?’

      ‘Of course, it takes the form of bribes, payments for some sort of safe passage, a definite possibility, but also…some of these same people, people of the bluest blood, are ready to pay for a guarantee of the Tsar’s death. That way they could take over the throne for themselves, right? You can be sure money is at the root of it. We know of substantial deposits in foreign banking houses. Call yourself a Tsar in exile? It might not be a bad job for someone with the right qualifications. Worth fighting for, worth raising an army, hiring a few strong men, I’d say.’ Zezulin smiled again. His hand grasped Ryzhkov’s sleeve, turned him so that he could get a better view of the latest parody of himself.

      Zezulin had gone serious. ‘You’d better know that at this moment Czech legions are threatening Yekaterinburg. They may have already taken the city, we don’t know. The telegraph links to the city have been sporadic at best.’

      ‘So no one knows exactly where the Romanovs are?’

      ‘Correct. That’s what you’re going to find out for me – you’re going to Yekaterinburg and you’re going to find out where they are and how they are. You are going to report that information back to me. You are going to pay particular attention to their security and whatever possessions, and if it comes to it you are going to safeguard them and wait for instructions.’

      ‘Oh, that doesn’t sound like much. You’ve got to give me some help. Who do you have there?’

      ‘The Ural Soviet, if they’re still in the district.’

      ‘If you can’t get anything in, how am I supposed to get anything out?’

      ‘Your contact in Yekaterinburg is a man named Nikolas Eikhe. He’s a metalsmith there. He lives on the edge of the city – it’s small, he won’t be hard to find. I’m sure you will do what you can. I have faith in you, Ryzhkov.’

      ‘I only get him to help?’

      ‘It all depends on what you learn. If you don’t learn anything, I’m not going to be able to get you anything, am I? Come on, spare me.’

      ‘I’m doing this for the people, I suppose.’

      ‘It goes without saying. That’s good enough,’ Zezulin said to the tailor. He steered Ryzhkov out and back up the steps, still in a hurry. ‘Are you tired? Don’t worry. You’ll get a good sleep very soon.’

      At the top of the steps they hailed a droshky. Zezulin made the driver raise the top even though it was summer, and then took them on a hurried tour of Moscow, while looking over his shoulder constantly. When they had looped back on themselves three or four times, he ordered the driver to pull in the entrance of a hospital past the Krasniya Gate. They walked right through the grounds and out the back to an adjoining street. At the corner there was a second droshky pulled up. The driver got out and held out a rucksack and an oiled packet tied with twine. Sticking out of the rucksack was the corner of a loaf of black bread and what looked like wilted turnip greens. Zezulin took the packet and handed it to him.

      ‘This is your pass to travel on the railroad, and your Cheka identity papers, your red card. When you meet who you think is Eikhe, you say this: “Have you ever been to Brazil?”’

      ‘You’re joking?’

      ‘“Have you ever been to Brazil?” “No, but I love the beach.” Got it?’

      Ryzhkov stood there for a moment. Nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve got it.’

      ‘Good. Eikhe will give you any assistance you need. You can communicate through him back to me. The details are in the envelope. Burn it after you’ve read it and memorized everything, please. If you get caught, it will be revealed that all these are, of course, forgeries.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘Yes, it’s all very secret. Get there as quick as you can. If the Whites take Yekaterinburg you’ll have to transform yourself back into Monsieur Ryzhkov and give them whatever passwords you’ve been trained to use back in Paris. Then you’ll be on your own until you can get back here. Go. Your train is on track 4, you’d better hurry, and may God be with you and cause the enemy to believe your stories.’

       3

      The Kazan station – he’d been there dozens of times, but now it had changed. A ring of soldiers at each entrance. Machine guns, sandbags. Zezulin pointed the way and then vanished behind him. He walked the last few yards himself, out from under the shade of the trees, across a bed of flowers that had yet to be trampled.

      It was crowded there, and it only enhanced Ryzhkov’s impression that he was being drawn into a great throat, sucked out from the sun into the blinding darkness – a place of screaming whistles and shouted commands in a dozen languages echoing beneath the great chambered roof. Into the dark cavern with not even time enough to feel what it was like to be a free man in Moscow, as if there were such a thing.

      A Red Guard asked for his papers. He showed them and was moved right along to a sergeant seated at a desk at the head of the stairs. It was like a conveyor belt СКАЧАТЬ