nervous grin.
“I demand to know who has sent you!”
And then a real policeman appeared from the side of the house, and demanded, “Hey, why aren’t you two wearing the new helmets?”
One of our comrades said, “Please, my friends, just let us do our-”
“But why aren’t you wearing the new uniforms? All uniforms were changed two weeks ago, and you should be wearing the new uniforms and the new helmets!”
Fearing that they had been discovered, our fake policemen cracked the whip and the carriage bolted toward the large wooden dacha. From all around came screaming and yelling.
“Stop! Stop right now!” cried the Minister’s guards.
But our fellows, dedicated to the Revolution, would not slow, let alone stop, and they steered the carriage right toward the front entrance of the house. I hurried across the lane, and with my own eyes saw all the commotion-the racing carriage, the soldiers and guards hurrying to apprehend our comrades. I even saw two of Mr. Minister Stolypin’s own children-a young girl and a much younger boy-come running onto the balcony above the front entrance, for they were eager to see what all the excitement was about. And when the carriage reached the house itself I watched as our fellows, still clutching the portfolios, leaped down from the carriage and rushed toward the entrance of the house and up the steps. The former serf Annushka was there at the door as always but, riled by the commotion, she didn’t greet the men with her toothless smile or even get ready to sweep away their filth. Instead, she took her twig broom and started swinging it at the men in an attempt to beat them back.
“Go away! Go away!” she screamed.
But our brave men swatted her like a fly, flicking her right off the stoop and into the bushes. The next moment they were charging inside.
Yes, in one second our comrades disappeared into the house, two very able men quite determined to put an end to this Stolypin. And then in a flash they were dead and gone, blown to pieces, because there came-oh!-what an explosion! I never saw such a thing, never heard anything so loud!
Certainly they must have thrown the bombs down in the entry hall, right onto the wood floor. Perhaps there were more guards blocking their way. Perhaps they realized they could go no farther-it must have been this-and when they realized they could not reach the Minister and toss the bombs at his feet they smashed them there on the floor. First the front door blew right off its hinges, shooting out some forty paces, followed immediately by some poor soul who came hurtling outside, head over heels, flying through the air like a rock. And then the entire huge summer house seemed to lift right up off its foundation. Yes, right before my eyes the whole house jumped upward, but actually it was the front of the house that took it the worst, for the entrance was blown clean away and even the balcony with the children on it exploded into the sky. Wood and doors and glass went flying everywhere, and even the horse that had pulled our fake policemen was lifted up into the air and thrown against a tree.
And then there was an odd quiet, but not complete quiet, for as the explosion reverberated through the neighborhood I could hear pane after pane of glass breaking in all the surrounding houses-later I heard that all the windows in all the houses on the island were broken or at least cracked. Even when the explosion was finished there was an odd kind of noise, a strange rain of sorts, as pieces of wood and glass and stone and even shoes and children’s toys began to fall down right on me. A huge brass samovar came tumbling out of the sky, landing not on my head but right at my feet.
My ears ringing, I ran toward the house, couldn’t stop myself. As I made my way up the drive, there were bodies everywhere, arms and legs, too, just like a real battlefield. For another minute or two there was silence, and then all of a sudden there was one scream, then another, and finally an entire chorus of agony. I looked around in shock. There, off to the side, buried in debris, was the body of Annushka, legs and arms twisted this way and that. She was quite dead, probably killed instantly. And there a gardener, his head blown off, and two women piled on top of each other, their faces ripped away and chests carved wide. Radi boga, how many had we killed here today? How many had given their lives just so we could eliminate the Minister who was so determined to stomp out the uprising of the oppressed?
I realized then that not just the front of the house had been ripped away but all the rooms in the central part too. Hearing someone cough, I looked up and saw a woman standing there at the top of the main staircase, of which only the top two steps remained. Looking like a ghost, this woman was completely covered in a white dust of plaster and limestone, and she surveyed everything, calmly and evenly. Then downstairs, off to the left, a door was pushed open and a large man stepped through the doorway and into a room that no longer existed. I recognized him as none other than Mr. Minister Stolypin. His office had been missed completely, and he emerged unscathed except for a large blue ink stain on his shirt-the worst that had happened to him was that his inkpot had spilled against his chest, dumping ink all over his fine white shirt.
The woman at the top of the stairs looked down at big Mr. Minister and in a flat, even voice, she said, “Thank God, you are alive.”
“Yes, my dear, as are you,” he said to this woman, who was obviously his wife. “And the children? Do you have them?”
“I don’t know where the two little ones are.”
Not knowing what I did-that the young ones had been on the balcony above the front entrance-the two parents turned and went separate ways, disappearing toward the back of the house. I nearly called out to them, nearly shouted, “No, your children were on the front balcony, looking at all the excitement. They must be lying out this way, out front-look this way! The force of the blast must have hurled them out here, into the front garden!”
Instead, it was I who went searching for the children.
I stepped over a body, broken and bent in a very strange way, and made my way over a pile of shattered wood. The carriage that had brought our fake policemen was heaved on its side and mostly destroyed, and the horse that had pulled the carriage hung there in its harness, stabbed in the side with a board and bleeding like a river. If the poor creature wasn’t already dead, it would be in a second. Noticing that there was something odd about the horse, I looked closely and saw that stuck to its side, right there on the hide, was a person’s ear. Two steps beyond was a man, lying facedown and moaning. I stooped by his side, listening as he tried to speak. I couldn’t understand a thing, and simply watched as he took a deep breath and then expired, blood pouring from his mouth. A little gray cat came running out of nowhere, frightened and excited, and scampered over the dead man’s back.
Off to the side I saw some scraps of railing and clambered in that direction, and there, under the debris, I found the two youngest children of Mr. Minister Stolypin. Lifting up a large board, I first found the boy, who was perhaps three years old, certainly no more than four. He was lying quite still, his legs twisted in opposite directions-broken, I was sure-and he had a gash in his forehead. At first I thought he too was dead. When I brushed the grime and debris from the child’s face, however, he blinked twice and looked up at me sweetly.
And with a faint smile, the boy managed to utter, “You’re a nice uncle.”
Fighting back something-just what I didn’t know-I managed to say, “Don’t try to move.”
The boy thought for a moment, and replied, “I can’t.”
Trying to make sure he was comfortable, I pushed everything aside as best I could, leaving him lying there quite calmly. Just a few paces away lay the other child, the girl, who was perhaps a teenager. She lay beneath a large piece of wooden furniture, which I grabbed and hurled aside. There were rocks and some other things covering her too, and these things I quickly pulled from her body. Looking for injuries, I could see none until my eyes came to her feet, both of which seemed to have been all but blown off.
When I lifted part of a desk off her arm, her body quivered, and she opened her eyes and gasped, “What kind of dream is this?”
“It’s not a dream, my child,” I replied.
“Oh.” Coming quickly to her senses, she asked, “Can you tell me, please, does Papa live?”
As much as I wanted to deny it, I could not lie, and said, “Yes.”
“Thank God. And thank God it’s me who’s hurt and not him.”
Her devotion touched something long forgotten inside me, and I knelt by her side and took her hand and held it and said some kind of comforting words, something even religious. I had seen enough bad accidents in my village to know she might actually live, but I was likewise certain that if she survived she would definitely be
