Godunov, which, Sergei remarked, the poor man probably had to sing as often as a tea-kettle whistles. And all society, dressed in their finest uniforms and gowns, were greatly pleased to see Sergei and me in attendance, so I did collect much money for my Charity Fund, and the evening was a grand success.
Chapter 16 PAVEL
Having failed in my task, I retreated into the night shadows of the Aleksandrovski Gardens, shaking and sweating despite the frost. What had I done? Had I ruined the plan altogether? But how else could I have acted, what choice was there?
Little Kalyayev, his sweet face tense with anxiety and cradling the bomb, came dashing toward me, and demanded, “What is it? What happened? Was the Grand Duke not in the carriage?”
“He was there-I saw him!”
“Then what-?”
Shaking and nearly in tears, I pleaded, “I couldn’t kill children!”
“What do you mean, what children?”
“Tell me I did the right thing!”
“You fool, what are you talking about?”
Savinkov, the Polish fellow on the sleigh, the one from whom I had got the bomb, suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Together the two of them pulled and pushed me into a hidden area, where they pinned me against a tree.
Pressing a knife against my throat, Savinkov hissed, “The Grand Duke’s carriage passed right by me as it drove around the corner-he was in there! I saw him with my own eyes! And he’d already be dead if it weren’t for you! You failed and now you’ve put the entire operation in danger!”
“But children… I saw them in there, that young Grand Duchess and Duke, and… and…!”
“What children? I saw none!”
“They were in there, the young ones, sitting just opposite the Grand Duke Sergei!”
All but screaming in my ear, Kalyayev demanded, “Are you a traitor to our cause? Have you betrayed us to the police?”
“No, I swear!” I pleaded. “The Grand Duchess Elisavyeta was in there, too, and I would have given the signal… but the children, the two little ones! I saw the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess and the two children-I saw them all! But… but we never talked about this, what we should do if there were children present! Forgive me, I just couldn’t do it!”
Kalyayev turned away, slammed his fist against his own forehead, and said, “If all four of them were really in the carriage, then our friend here is correct, we couldn’t kill them, not the little ones.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” demanded Savinkov.
“We want the Grand Duke’s death to unleash revolution and… and…” Kalyayev fell into desperate thought. “And that wouldn’t happen if we started killing children. That would turn the workers and mothers against us, not for us.”
“But I saw no children!” snapped Savinkov. “He’s lying-I say we kill this one here and now!”
“Go ahead,” I said, only too eager to pass from this world. “But I swear all four of them were in the carriage!”
A long minute of argument followed, but Savinkov and Kalyayev decided to spare my life, at least for the moment, at least until they could figure out if I was telling the truth. And so they led me from the park and delivered both me and the bomb to several other conspirators, who were dressed as peasants and who in turn led me to a small apartment with only one window. There I was shoved onto a chair and my arms were tied behind my back. The bomb was placed on a table, and Dora Brilliant herself appeared before too long. It was her job to disarm the explosive, which she proceeded to do right before my eyes.
“Did I do the right thing?” I pleaded, my brow beading with perspiration. “Or did I ruin it all? What have I done?”
As she coolly went about her business, she shrugged, and muttered, “You did what you needed to do.”
“Yes, but-”
“Sh,” she said, carefully pulling some small piece from the bomb. “The others will discover for themselves that you are telling the truth-and I’m sure you are, for I can see it in your eyes-and then we will decide upon another time and place to put an end to the Grand Duke.”
Of course I was telling the truth. But of course I didn’t care if they killed me. And yet I couldn’t stop trembling, which perplexed me a great deal and only caused me to tremble more. I had thought everything dead within me, every morsel of compassion, of feeling, long gone. Or was it not? I realized that that was what scared me more than anything else-that I carried a weakness, a softness, which could and would dampen my thirst for blood. I’d felt not a moment of hesitation or remorse when I slit the throat of that unimportant bureaucrat in Novgorod, and yet the sight of those two royal children had caused me to fall apart. What did this mean, the end of my revolutionary path? Was I not destined to avenge the deaths of my wife and child and fellow workers who had fallen on Bloody Sunday?
No, I thought, just picture Shura lying there in that crimson snow, just remember her bright death in that blinding sunshine…
Her delicate work completed, Dora Brilliant disappeared behind a curtain and into the next room. Alone and tied to the chair, I drifted in and out of self-pity for what seemed like hours, one moment lashing myself for my failure to hasten the end of the Grand Duke, the next silently sobbing at the loss of my wife and unborn. I wanted to die. I thought of breaking loose and finding poison, of hanging myself, of taking a gun and blowing my brains out, of leaping across the room and grabbing the disarmed bomb and somehow making it explode…
Hours later the door opened. The two of them, Kalyayev and Savinkov, came stomping in. At the sound of them, Dora Brilliant and some other comrade reappeared. But one glance at Kalyayev and I knew my fate. From the satisfied smirk written all across his brow, I knew, unfortunately, that I was to live.
Throwing his fur hat on the table next to the disarmed bomb, Kalyayev said, “I waited outside the Bolshoi in the cold. Handfuls of drivers were huddled around fires, and I moved from one to the next, gleaning what information I could, asking: ‘Did the Grand Duke come to the theater tonight? Which carriage did he come in? Was his wife in attendance also? Was there anyone else with them?’ ”
“Meanwhile I went inside,” confessed Savinkov, who, owing to his aristocratic looks, I was sure, had had no trouble entering the Imperial Bolshoi. “And I asked and inquired, and everywhere I heard exactly what they were saying out on the street, that the Grand Duke had arrived with his wife as well as his two young wards.”
“Not only that,” added Kalyayev, “but I waited outside until the end of the performance and I saw the four of them for myself. All bundled up, they hurried through the cold and climbed back in the Grand Duke’s carriage, returning directly to the Kremlin.”
“So our little new revolutionary, our Pavel here, did quite the correct thing,” began Dora Brilliant, running a hand through her dark hair. “Not only would it have been morally wrong to kill the children but we would have lost many supporters and sympathizers. In fact, it would have set us back years.”
Realizing that I had told the truth as well as, by some fluke, acted in the best interests of the Revolution, they freed me, cutting loose the cords that bound me. I slumped forward, my face falling into my hands. More than anything I was overwhelmed with self-doubt, for the truth was that I had made no heroic decision, nor had I even briefly thought what might be best for the cause. Simply, I had been defeated by the sight of the two youths.
Or had I?
Rising to my feet, I crossed the dismal room to the window and peered through the small pane of glass. And what I saw on the other side was not the depths of the Moscow night but her, a white mirage of her, the Grand Duchess, staring back at me. Despite my failure that evening, all of us were determined to continue with our plan until either we succeeded or every last one of us was killed trying. And that was how we ventured out well after midnight that same night, eventually arriving at The Alpine Rose, a restaurant on Sofiyka. The restaurant was long closed, of course, but Savinkov bribed the porter and in we went, warming ourselves around a stove and formulating a new plan. We decided-or I should say, they decided, because I spoke not a single word-that the
