The Lieutenant’s Lover. Harry Bingham

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СКАЧАТЬ are they coming?’

      ‘Tuesday. Wednesday. Who knows?’

      That gave Misha three days, maybe four. Except he didn’t know the codes and he wasn’t a safe-breaker.

      4

      Tonya went with Rodyon the next day.

      The Petrograd Soviet had issued a stream of housing decrees, making bold statements about minimum space requirements, light requirements, heat requirements, water and sewerage requirements. It was Rodyon’s job to see those decrees were implemented, or at least not wildly breached. All morning, Tonya watched him stride around his domain, backed by a flurry of lesser officials. And he did stride. He seemed to fly through his duties. Those with surplus space were reprimanded, spare rooms reallocated, disputes settled.

      And, Tonya noticed, he was fair. He never victimised the rich. He dealt with them the same way as he dealt with everyone. And he lived by the standards that he set others. Like everyone else, he was thin and hungry, and Tonya could tell from his clothes that he slept in them for warmth.

      All morning, they strode around. Tonya didn’t find any opportunities for barter. She didn’t know why she was here. She felt cross with Rodyon for wasting her day.

      ‘I thought you were going to help me find logs,’ said Tonya, when they broke for lunch.

      ‘Yes. But first I wanted you to see this.’

      ‘See what?’

      Rodyon turned to her, his handsome face with its broken nose.

      ‘People grumble because our revolution hasn’t delivered the promised land overnight. But how could it? For centuries, the bourgeois have exploited the workers. For centuries, the landowners have stolen from the peasants. It will take many years to put that right. And that’s why it’s important not to lose a day.’

      ‘Why me? Why did you want me to see it?’

      ‘Why you?’ Rodyon smiled and his smile turned his face back into an enigma. ‘Because it’s important for everyone to understand. Especially young people. Especially intelligent ones. Especially ones with sparkling eyes and—’

      He moved his hand towards her face. Instinctively Tonya drew back and he managed to convert his gesture into a cousinly pat on the shoulder. He smiled as though to laugh away his last sentence, and she smiled as though she accepted his dismissal of it. She felt confused and her confusion made her uncomfortable. She liked Rodyon; liked and admired him. He was a man with power in a world where power mattered. But Tonya still never quite knew where she stood with him. She’d had men – boys really – in love with her before. But then she’d known that love was love. The boys had been goofy with it, soppy with it, angry with it, overcome with it. But it seemed as though nothing would ever overcome Rodyon. He seemed to be a man who could never be mastered.

      Rodyon finished his bowl of gruel with a grimace.

      ‘Well then, comrade citizen, let’s find you logs.’ His voice sounded harsh.

      The next house was a big mansion on Kuletsky Prospekt. And there it was the same thing. Arrangements were checked, papers filled, orders given, disputes settled. In one room, bone cold even in the middle of the day, a steel safe was cemented into the wall, the marks of sledgehammers and crowbars fresh in the surrounding plaster.

      And on the top floor, Rodyon whispered to Tonya. ‘Your bourgeois await. How you deal with them is up to you.’

      The family concerned – a mother, a small boy and a young man about Tonya’s age – were living in two rooms of a former servants’ attic. Rodyon flashed through his interrogation, purposeful and disciplined. Only this time, his usual fairness had been replaced by something harder. Rodyon’s questioning had a cruel edge to it, a hint of the police cells. The young man, the son, answered for the mother. Tonya could see that he was taken aback by Rodyon’s attitude, but he nevertheless kept his cool. After fifteen minutes, the questioning turned away from the matter of housing.

      ‘There is a safe downstairs.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘You are aware that the contents of that safe belong to the Petrograd Soviet?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Do you know what is inside?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Do you know the codes?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘You’re telling me that your father didn’t tell you?’

      ‘I was away in the army. Before that – well, he thought I was too young, I suppose.’

      ‘You are aware that theft from the Petrograd Soviet is a serious offence?’

      ‘Of course.’

      The young man smiled bitterly. And in that smile, for the first time, Tonya saw the revolution from the point of view of the former ruling class. This young man’s family had lost all its worldly goods, its enormous house, and now here he was being accused of stealing the things that had once been his. She was struck by his calmness, impressed.

      ‘Do you have any documents that relate to your father’s previous concerns?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Without being asked the young man got them out and handed them over.

      ‘Why weren’t these submitted earlier to the proper authorities?’

      ‘I didn’t know they were meant to be.’

      ‘There were decrees issued and posted. It is the responsibility of every citizen to inform themselves and—’

      ‘I was in the army. I wasn’t in Petrograd.’

      ‘No matter. You were in the army. What about now?’

      ‘No, not any more. I was wounded…’

      ‘You have a demobilisation order from an officer in the Red Army?’

      ‘At the time it wasn’t the Red Army and—’

      ‘Movement orders?’

      The interview lasted another couple of minutes: unrelenting, hard, hostile, tough. The business with the safe was brought up again. The young man insisted he knew nothing of it. Rodyon again reminded him of how seriously ‘theft from the Petrograd Soviet’ would be regarded. He meant either prison cells or the bullet, and the young man smiled grimly in acknowledgement.

      And then it finished. Rodyon swept on out of the house, down onto the street, to the next house and the next and the next. But he left Tonya behind him, peering through the half-open door, listening to the silence.

      5

      Misha was about to bend down to check СКАЧАТЬ