commit the deed and later die on the scaffold-it is like sacrificing one’s life twice. It’s wonderful.”
His words took my breath away. There was hardly anything to say or do, so great was the abyss between us. And from my handbag I took an icon.
“I beg you to accept this icon in memory of me,” I said. “I will pray for you.”
He tenderly accepted the icon and in fact kissed my hand, and I departed the room. That eve, perhaps as he sat in his dark cell, he wrote a poem, which in due time was shown me:
A woman like a shadow, a ghost with no life
Sat next to me clasping my hand
She looked, and she whispered to me: “I’m his wife”
And wept and shed tears with no end.
Her frock was so black and it smelled of the grave,
But her tears… They simply told everything
So I didn’t reject her, I spared woman-slave
From the camp of the Enemy King.
Then she nervously murmured: “I’m praying for you…”
Without a doubt, I was touched by Kalyayev’s writing, for he was quite a capable wordsmith, but most importantly he was reaching for a kind of understanding.
And I did do exactly that: I prayed on my knees for that man’s soul.
Chapter 24 PAVEL
With the money we killed for and stole, we created so many spies. If the Tsar thought he had many secret agents watching us, why, within months we had more than him, an entire secret army watching him and his. People were sick of the way the Romanovs had treated us, sitting upon us and trading us like we were cords of wood. But no more, we had stepped forward and we would fight back! Yes, and so we had spies spying on people, and people spying on spies, and so on and so forth. Frankly, there was only one problem: I never knew which comrade to trust.
Our Poet was soon taken to the Boutyrsk Prison, where with a few bitter words about capitalism and a fistful of rubles we managed to convert some of the guards to our side. We wanted-we needed-to know how Kalyayev was getting along, not just because we cared for him but more importantly because we needed to know if he’d cracked and revealed anything about us, which, as we learned, he hadn’t. That he continued to be the perfect revolutionary and remained loyal to the Organization came not as a surprise, just more of a relief, and his unbroken dedication to the overthrow of the Tsar inspired us more than ever.
There was only one thing that caused us distress, news of which came directly from Kalyayev in a smuggled letter. He was incredibly angry. Tormented. And in the smallest handwriting on a scrap of paper, he told why, that it was because of her, that Romanov woman, the Grand Duchess who should have died with her evil husband. What filled him with bitter regret was that news of his meeting with her was passed up and down the street, and appeared in every newspaper, each version more strange and different than the last.
“Comrades,” he wrote to us, “please forgive me my foolish deed, please don’t think ill of me! I should not have met with her… it makes me feel a traitor to the Organization!”
So upset was he that in short time he even wrote her a letter, a copy of which he made sure our spies got to us, for he wanted us, his comrades, to know what really happened.
Princess-
I did not know you, you came to me of your own accord: therefore the responsibility for the consequences of our meeting lies solely with you.
Our meeting took place, to all outward appearances, in circumstances of intimacy. What passed between us was not meant for publication but concerned us alone. We met on neutral ground, at your own direction, tete-a- tete, and were thus entitled to the same right of incognito. How otherwise to explain your selfless Christian feeling?
I trusted your nobility, supposing that your exalted official position and your personal merit would provide suf ficient guarantee against the kind of malicious intrigue in which even you, to some extent, have been implicated. But you were not afraid to be seen involved: my trust in you has not been justified.
There is malicious intrigue and tendentious versions of our private meeting. The question arises: could either have happened without your participation, albeit passive, in the form of nonresistance, when your honor dictated the opposite course of action? The answer is contained in the question itself, and I protest vigorously against a political interpretation of my decent feelings of sympathy for you and your grief. My convictions and my attitude to the Imperial House remain unchanged.
I fully recognize my own mistake: I should have reacted to you impassively and not entered into any conversation. But I was gentle with you, and during our meeting I suppressed that feeling of hatred, which in reality I feel for you. You know now what motive guided me. But you have proved unworthy of my magnanimity. Because for me there is no doubt that you are the source of all the stories about me, for who would have dared to reveal the substance of our conversation without first asking your permission (the newspaper version is distorted: I never admitted to being a Believer, I never expressed the slightest repentance).
The fact you remained alive is also my victory, and one that made me rejoice doubly when the Grand Duke had been killed.
– Kalyayev
Ha! Talk about a real man, talk about honesty!
Actually, though, that last part was not quite right. His victory? Not really, more like my little mistake. And back then I was quite sure she never, ever realized it-that that Romanov woman never knew that the reason she lived past her husband was not because of some God or Kalyayev, but because of me, a cowardly revolutionary who was afraid to act as she traveled to the opera. Oh, and when I read that letter I came up with a fat wish, that one day our paths should cross and I could… could…
Yes, my revolution burned with the hot embers of revenge.
A few months later, that May, actually, Kalyayev was secretly transferred to the capital and from Peterburg to the Shlisselburg Fortress way out on that small island, where they planned to take his life. I saw it all, too, for I killed someone else, a stupid merchant. Sure, I cut that guy’s fat neck, stole all his money, and then used those rubles to bribe one of the guards to get my way into the fortress just so I could watch them kill my great hero.
The execution of Our Poet was supposed to be secret, because they wanted no one of the people to know, because the bigwigs were afraid that riots would break out. And so at two o’clock in the morning, just as the first of the northern morning light was beginning to color the sky, they brought Kalyayev out. In the yard there were only a handful of officials, some guards, some prison people, and me, too, standing way at the back in the uniform of a yard worker. I wanted to wave, to call out, to say, “Don’t worry, I will witness your end and spread word far and wide of your bravery!” But I kept quiet. To my eyes he looked thinner, otherwise normal. And he mounted the scaffold without hesitation or assistance. Yes, true to his word, he was eager to die for the cause.
At the top of the steps he was met by a gray-bearded priest robed in black, who asked, “Would you like to address a last prayer to God, my son?”
Kalyayev shook his head, turned to the few of us there, and shouted, “I am happy to die for the cause of the Revolution! I am happy to have retained my composure right until the end!”
His words made me smile with pride, and I’ve always cherished the thought that maybe he recognized me out there, for I saw something-a grin of recognition, perhaps even a wink-when he looked my way. The next moment he was led up onto the block, and the beasty executioner, wearing a white shroud and red bonnet, smiled as wide as an opera singer. Having done this hundreds of times if not more, the executioner threw a rope over Kalyayev’s neck-and then in the blink of a second he knocked away the very block on which my hero was perched.
But the rope was too long!
Oh, dear Lord, it was so cruel the way Kalyayev fell, dropping through the air until his feet hit the ground. He cried out as he choked and struggled and half tumbled over, yet the rope kept him kind of upright. It was
