Sashenka

“A quick chat in my study first,” her father said.

I am to be tried, decided Sashenka, and then I shall have to talk to this bunch of shop dummies.

They went into the study. Sashenka remembered how, when her mother was away, her father would let her curl up in the cubbyhole under the desk while he worked. She loved being near him.

“Can I listen?” It was Gideon who threw himself onto the sofa and lay back, sipping cognac. Sashenka was delighted he was there; he might help counteract her mother, who sat down opposite her, in her father’s chair.

“Leonid, close the door. Thank you,” said Zeitlin, leaning on the Trotting Chair. “Do sit.” Sashenka sat. “We’re so glad you’re home, dear girl, but you did give us a hell of a shock. It wasn’t easy getting you out. You should thank Flek.”

Sashenka said she would.

“You really might have been on your way to Siberia. The bad news is that you’re not going back to Smolny…”

That’s no funeral, thought Sashenka, that institute for imbeciles!

“…but we’ll arrange tutoring. Well, you’ve shown us your independence. You’ve read your Marx and Plekhanov. You’ve had a close shave. I was young once—”

“Were you?” asked Ariadna acidly.

“Not that I recall,” joked Gideon.

“Well, you may be right, but I went to meetings of narodniks and socialists in Odessa—once when I was very young. But this is deadly serious, Sashenka. There must be no more fooling around with these dangerous nihilists.” He came over and kissed the top of her head. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

“I’m so happy to be here, Papa.”

She gave him her hand and he pressed it, but Sashenka knew this loving scene with her father would provoke her mother. Sure enough, Ariadna cleared her throat.

“Well, you look quite unscathed. You’ve bored us long enough with your views on ‘workers’ and ‘exploiters’ and now you’ve caused us all a lot of trouble. I even had to bring this up with the Elder Grigory.”

Fury reared up inside Sashenka. She wanted to shout out that she was ashamed that a creature like Rasputin was ruling Russia, ashamed that her own mother, whose love affairs with cardsharps and fads with charlatans had long embarrassed her, was now consorting with the Mad Monk. But instead, she could not stop herself answering like the petulant schoolgirl she still was. Searching for a target, she aimed for the dress chosen by her mother.

“Mama, I hate sailor suits and this is the last time I shall ever wear one.”

“Bravo!” said Gideon. “A figure like yours is wasted in—”

“That’s enough, Gideon. Please leave us alone,” said Ariadna.

Gideon got up to go, winking at Sashenka.

“You’ll wear what I say,” said her mother, in her flowing crepe de chine dress with flounces of lace. “You’ll wear the sailor suits as long as you behave like an irresponsible child.”

“Enough, both of you,” Zeitlin said quietly. “Your mother will indeed decide what you wear.”

“Thank you, Samuil.”

“But I propose a deal, darling girl. If you promise never to dabble in nihilism, anarchism and Marxism ever again, and never to talk politics with Mendel, your mother will take you shopping for your own adult gown at Chernyshev’s, on my account. She’ll let you have your hair done at Monsieur Troye’s like her. You can get your cards and stationery printed at Treumann’s and you and your mother can take Pantameilion and make ‘at home’ calls. And you’ll never have to dress in a sailor suit again.”

Zeitlin opened his hands, thought Sashenka, as if he had cut the Gordian knot or solved the mysteries of the Delphic oracle. She did not want dresses from Chernyshev’s and she certainly did not need them where she was going. Her dear, silly father so longed for her to leave her cards and write love letters to pea-brained counts and guardsmen. But she already had what she needed: a plain high-necked blouse, a sensible skirt, woollen stockings and walking shoes.

“Agreed, Ariadna?”

Ariadna nodded and lit a Mogul cigarette. Then they both turned to Sashenka.

“Sashenka, look into my eyes and swear solemnly to this.”

Sashenka peered into her father’s blue eyes and then glanced at her mother.

“Thank you, Papa. I promise that I will never ever talk politics with Mendel and never dabble in nihilism again.”

Zeitlin pulled a brocade cord.

“Yes, Baron,” replied Leonid, opening the door. “Lunch is served.”

17

A stunted man in pince-nez, an oversized coachman’s sheepskin and a leather peaked cap with earmuffs stood on the Nevsky Prospect, watching the streetcar rumble toward him. It was dark, and a bitter blizzard whipped his face, already red and raw. The colossal General Staff building was on his left.

Mendel Barmakid looked behind him. The shpik—the secret-police spook—was still there, a mustachioed man with a military bearing in a green coat, trying to keep warm. Spooks tended to work in twos but he could not see the other one. Mendel was outside the illuminated windows of Chernyshev’s, one of his sister’s cheaper dressmakers. In a display window of mannequins in that season’s velvet and tulle, he saw himself: a dwarf with a clubfoot, fat lips and a neat beard on the end of his chin. It was not an attractive sight but he had no time for sentimental indulgences. Nevsky was almost empty. The temperatures were falling—tonight it was minus twenty and the spooks had found him again when the Petrograd Committee met at the secret apartment in Vyborg. It was only ten days since his escape from exile, and now those police clods would debate whether to arrest him again or allow him to lead them to more comrades.

The streetcar stopped with a ringing of bells and a little meteor shower of sparks from the electric cables above. A woman got out. The spook beat his gloves together, his Cossack earring catching the light of the streetlamp.

The streetcar creaked forward. Suddenly Mendel ran toward it, his bad limp giving him a peculiar gait. His body twisted like a human parabola but he ran very fast for a cripple. The streetcar was moving now. It was hard to run in the snow and even though Mendel did not look back, he knew that the young, fit spook had already spotted him and was giving chase. Mendel grabbed hold of the bar. The conductor, shouting, “Well run, old man!” seized his other arm and pulled him up.

Sweating inside his sheepskin, Mendel glanced back: the spook was running behind—but he was not going to make it. Mendel saluted him, noble-style, touching his brim.

He traveled two stops, then slipped off the streetcar at the pink Stroganov Palace and again checked his tails. No one—though they always found him again. He passed the colonnades of the Kazan Cathedral, where he sometimes met comrades on the run from exile. The snow was slicing at the orange lanterns and he had to keep rubbing the lenses of his pince-nez. He saw only the shops of the bloodsucking classes—the Passazh with its English tailors and French jewelers; the Yeliseyev Emporium piled obscenely high with hams, sturgeons, cakes, oysters, clams, Indian teas and Fortnum & Mason fruitcakes; the labyrinthine Gostiny Dvor, with its bearded merchants in caftans selling antique icons and samovars.

Mendel heard the clipclop of horsemen—two gendarmes on patrol, but they were chatting to each other loudly about a whore in Kaluga and did not see him. He waited at the window of Yeliseyev’s till they were gone. Then a Rolls-Royce sped by, and coming the other way a Delaunay: perhaps it was Zeitlin?

He reached the Hotel Europa, with its doormen in scarlet greatcoats and top hats. Its foyer and restaurant were the most heavily spied-upon square feet in the whole of Europe—and that was why he felt safe. No one would expect an escaped exile to linger here. But his coat was ragged and darned, while the folk around here were in sables, frock coats, guardsmen’s rig. Already the doorman, who was a police agent, was staring at him.

Mendel heard the dry swish of the sleigh. He limped over to a doorway to watch it come, searching for signs