The Lieutenant’s Lover. Harry Bingham

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      ‘Hmm.’

      Rodyon paced again. Back to the window, behind Kiryl’s armchair, which he rocked to and fro on its back legs, then to the table and the carrot ends and onion skins left over from Tonya’s cooking. He took some carrot ends and began to munch.

      ‘Babba Varvara’s all right, is she?’

      ‘She’s fine. No different from ever.’

      ‘No. You do well with her. If she weren’t your responsibility she would be mine. Thank you.’

      Tonya shrugged. Then he turned abruptly around, and faced Tonya. She found herself fixed in the sudden glare of his intensity.

      ‘Listen, Antonina, this boy of yours, Mikhail Ivanovich. He is a danger to you. You must stop seeing him.’

      Tonya opened her mouth to protest. The anxiety that she’d felt since Rodyon’s entry had been pointing all along to this one inevitable moment. She felt fiercely, passionately protective of Misha. But Rodyon didn’t let her speak. He waved down anything she might have had to say.

      ‘You’ll protest of course. But hear me out. At the heart of the Communist Party lies the understanding that the interests of Malevich’s class are irreconcilable with the interests of the workers. It isn’t any longer a question of living space or property or anything like that. But Malevich knows that the Party is his enemy. The Party knows that Malevich is its enemy. If you align yourself with Malevich, you align yourself against the Party. That’s dangerous. It’s inconceivably foolish, if I may say so.’

      Tonya moved her tongue inside her mouth. She found only glue and ash. She couldn’t have spoken if she’d wanted to, but Rodyon hadn’t finished.

      ‘The second thing is this. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee is about to issue a new set of decrees. Malevich and his kind will be sent into internal exile all over Russia. It’s no use having these people crawling over the seats of power in Petrograd and Moscow. They’ll be given work to do. They will work of their own accord, or they will be made to work in a labour camp. We find it helps to keep the alternatives fairly simple. The decrees will be published any day now. They will have immediate effect.’

      Tonya felt the blood rushing in her head. She wanted to find some way to block the sound of Rodyon’s words, but couldn’t. The words had already smashed aside any possible barrier and were roaring forwards in their destructive progress. Only time could tell what wreckage would be left behind.

      ‘And one last thing. I think I’ve handled things badly. I should have acted sooner or perhaps later. I kept putting things off. But in the end I realise that the only important thing is that I should act. Antonina – Tonya – I am – I have always been your greatest friend and admirer. I know that this isn’t the time – there’s Malevich in your thoughts I know. But you will put him aside. You’ll have to. And when you do, please know that I’m here. I have loved you for a long time. For ever, so it seems. I would like to be – if you’ll let me – I know it’ll take time – more than just your friend and your cousin. Don’t give me an answer now. The timing is all wrong, I know. Forgive me. But some day. I shan’t go away.’

      Rodyon took a step or two forwards as though intending to grasp Tonya’s hands or kiss her. Then, realising any such movement would be profoundly unwelcome, he simply nodded his head, briefly looked around the room, then strode briskly away.

      5

      Tonya told Misha of Rodyon’s visit. She didn’t tell him about the first part of what he’d had to say, nor the last part either. But she told him about the decrees, the awful fact of impending banishment.

      Misha had listened in silence, then nodded thoughtfully.

      ‘I’d expected something like that,’ he said, ‘only I’d hoped it wouldn’t come so soon. All the same, there’s no reason to change plans. We’ll just have to work a little faster.’

      And work they did. Misha barely slept for working. He finished building a false wall into the back of one of the grain hoppers and got three of the six wagons workable. He couldn’t do more.

      Nor was Tonya idle.

      It was one thing to build a false wall onto the back of a freight car, it was quite another thing to get that freight car onto the right train on the right line at the right time. After consulting intensively together, Misha and Tonya agreed that it was essential to take Kiryl at least partly into their confidence. The old man was utterly untrustworthy in most respects, but there was little he wouldn’t do for vodka, and Tonya promised him enough to swim in. Somehow, Kiryl used his railway contacts to attach the wagon to a train bound for Finland. A date was set – then postponed – then set again.

      And finally, things were ready. The train would leave at first light, which meant that it would be loaded overnight. Emma, Yevgeny, Tonya and Misha stood in the corner of the freight yard, watching the process.

      A locomotive stood at the head of a long line of grain hoppers, moving the wagons forward in short eight-yard bursts, letting each one fill with grain from the loading chute. It was past midnight and the process was accompanied by flares of lamplight, whistles, and the occasional thundering curse. The short season of white nights had passed. The night was dark.

      Misha’s wagon was near the back of the line, but the line kept moving forwards. It was time.

      ‘Well then,’ said Emma.

      ‘You’ve got the blankets?’

      ‘Yes. And the cushions are already inside.’

      ‘Good.’

      Emma had a basket in her hands: food and water enough for three days, plenty of soft wax for earplugs, a candle stub and matches, enough jewellery to bribe any number of border guards. The crucial bank documents, which represented the family’s future worth in the new world, were sewn into the lining of Emma’s travelling jacket. Yevgeny, absurdly dressed in a neat blue sailor suit, stood wide-eyed with tiredness, looking at each of the three adults in turn.

      Up ahead the locomotive jolted forwards. Misha reached out instinctively to pull Yevgeny away from the moving train, then kept his arm around him as they walked the eight yards on to their wagon. The sound of the grain chute was louder now. The farewells could no longer be put off.

      Misha climbed into the wagon first, hoisted Yevgeny after him, then watched Emma and Tonya climb in as well. Though from the outside the wagon looked the same as all the rest, and would do even in full daylight, the inside was different. Alone in the repairs yard, working mostly by night, Misha had welded a compartment that lay up against the sloping rear of the wagon. Access into the little space was via a sliding panel which would be completely concealed when the grain was loaded. At the top of the compartment Misha had fixed a grating to provide air, but a plate had been fixed so that nobody could look down through the grating to what lay beneath. The whole thing had been made to took like a permanent feature, inconspicuous. The compartment would be cramped, noisy, sweaty, dirty and uncomfortable. But it would be roomy enough for two people to get from Petrograd to Finland in safety.

      Misha slid back the steel panel. It clanked loudly, but the night air was full of clanks and bangs. No one was around, either to notice or care. The compartment yawned darkly open in the lantern’s light. The only minuscule concessions СКАЧАТЬ